Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that decisions on the recent consultation on tobacco and vapes packaging, appearance, and retail display are informed by robust public health evidence and expertise; and protected from any attempts that were made to use technology in consultation responses to aid commercial interests.

I refer the Hon. Member to the statement issued by the Department on 26 October in respect of the attempted interference in the consultation process, which, for ease of reference, is reproduced below:

"We always have robust controls in place to prevent the manipulation of our public consultations, and those controls worked effectively in this case. As a result, the fake responses were removed, and the consultation helped inform the landmark action we are taking to create a smoke-free generation."