Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the consultation entitled Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping, published on 12 October 2023, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of including heated tobacco products within these proposals on levels of smoking cessation.

Smoking is responsible for around 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom and causes approximately one in four cancer deaths in the UK. It also costs our country £17 billion a year and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service. This is why the Government is planning to create a smokefree generation by bringing forward legislation so that children turning 14 years old or younger this year will never be legally sold tobacco products.

All tobacco products are harmful. The new legislation proposes to mirror existing age of sale legislation which includes any product containing tobacco, both smoked and smokeless, and intended for oral or nasal use, and cigarette papers.  Our consultation to gather views on our proposals and their implementation closed on 6 December 2023.

We will publish our Impact Assessment shortly.