Blue on blue differences on tobacco and vapes highlight Tory divisions

The ninth sitting of the Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee took place yesterday.

I’ve just read the transcript on Hansard and, as ever, I’m beginning to lose the will to live - and I’m not alone. Here is Andrew Gwynne, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who is also on the Committee:

Andrew Gwynne (Labour)
I am grateful to hon. Members for their questions on these clauses, which are entirely technical and appertain to the treatment of the Crown in relation to the measures in the Bill. They follow a general Crown application, being broadly similar to, and mirroring pretty closely, the way other Acts of Parliament deal with the Crown. I am not sure whether the fact we have spent more than half an hour debating them shows Parliament at its best or at its niggliest, but we are having the debate none the less.

Gregory Stafford (Conservative)
I take the Minister’s point that the clauses are technical, but if we are not here to ensure that legislation is drafted correctly and appropriately, what are we here for?

Andrew Gwynne
We are here to ensure that the Bill gets on the statute book. I was under the impression—perhaps the misapprehension—that at least the two Opposition Front Benchers, the hon. Members for Farnham and Bordon and for Sleaford and North Hykeham, were supportive of the measures in the Bill. If so, we seem to have spent an extraordinary amount of time discussing matters that do not really affect the Bill, except in relation to the Crown.

Dr Caroline Johnson (Conservative)
Will the Minister give way?

Andrew Gwynne
Perhaps the hon. Lady will let me finish. The measures are standard practice for any Bill, but Members have put some questions to me, so I will reassure them about some of the issues they have raised. But before doing so, I will give way to the shadow Minister, who has had plenty of time to talk about this matter.

Dr Johnson
I thank the Minister for giving way. I want to echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon that the purpose of line-by-line scrutiny is to do just that: to go through the Bill line by line. The Minister’s job might be to get things on the statute book for his Prime Minister and Cabinet and for the Government in which he serves, but surely he wishes to ensure that the Bill he is leading on is in the best possible condition. That is the purpose of the line-by-line scrutiny that we are in Committee to do.

Andrew Gwynne
I absolutely do with that. The point I am making is that we have just over another week to deal with these matters. If we get to the end of next week not having considered important chunks of the Bill because we have wasted time on silly little matters that appertain not only to the whole of this legislation, but to other legislation as well, and on fairly standard clauses relating to how legislation deals with the Crown, that will be on His Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

Aside from that, an interesting aspect of the committee stage has been the obvious divergence of opinion within Conservative ranks.

Last week, for example, I noticed that an amendment to raise the age of sale of tobacco from 18 to 25 had been defeated by 14 votes to two. The only MPs who voted for the amendment - which would have replaced the generational ban - were Jack Rankin and Sarah Bool, two of the four Conservative MPs on the Committee.

To be clear, the amendment was proposed by a Lib Dem MP who was not on the Committee and I am guessing the reason Rankin and Bool voted for it was because it was the only alternative to a generational ban. It did however indicate their opposition to the latter.

Numerous amendments have gone to a vote and each time (as far as I can tell) Dr Johnson, the shadow public health minister, has voted with the Labour and Lib Dem members of the Committee.

Sometimes she has been joined by fellow Tory, Gregory Stafford, but generally the two other Conservatives on the Committee, Sarah Bool and Jack Rankin, have voted the other way (ie against her).

Here's one of many exchanges between Johnson and Rankin:

Jack Rankin
My hon. Friend is making an eloquent case that we should not be advertising vapes, or their pricing and products, to children. What she is not doing is making a case for banning the display of products or prices of vapes to adults. Does she think it is incongruous to treat tobacco products and vaping products in the same way in this clause?

Dr Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Part of me wants to say, “Well, what do you do when the child goes into the newsagent? Put a blindfold on them?” If the displays are visible to adults, they will be visible to the children who are walking beside them. It would be helpful if my hon. Friend has any ideas on how we can ensure that, when walking into an average newsagent, children cannot see something that grown-ups can.

In contrast to those Tory divisions, Labour MPs on the Committee have been united on every vote. Similarly the two Lib Dem MPs on the Committee.

It therefore begs the question: what is the Conservative position on the Bill, especially the generational ban? And the answer is: I don’t know. Literally, not a clue.

In opposition, and with only 121 MPs, you might think that every Tory MP would be singing from the same hymn sheet. Instead, the divisions are all too obvious, to the extent that Labour’s Andrew Gwynne couldn’t resist having a pop:

That is a decision for future Governments; it is not what we intend in this Bill, which is clear on what the penalty regime will be. I cannot guarantee that some future Government will not decide to alter the penalty regime. That may be a Liberal Democrat Government, a future Labour Government or even a future Conservative Government, when the Conservatives get their act in order, although the differences in the Committee [my italics] suggest that may be way after the next generation are affected by the Bill to a considerable extent.

Given that Kemi Badenoch voted against the Tobacco and Vapes Bill at second reading it’s clear where the leader of the party stands, but her shadow public health minister appears to be pursuing her own agenda.

I know Conservative MPs have been given a free vote on the Bill, and it probably doesn’t make sense, politically, to invite rebellion by imposing the whip on MPs when – given Labour’s massive majority – the Bill is almost certain to become law, but the bigger issue (for the Conservatives) is this:

What does the party stand for and what do they believe in?

Listening to Caroline Johnson it’s that clear she, like many of her colleagues (including Bob Blackman, co-chair of the APPG on Smoking and Health and recently elected chairman of the influential 1922 Committee), supports the type of nanny state policies that are anathema to Jack Rankin, Sarah Bool and others.

How, then, are they in the same party because this is a fundamental difference, not just in policy but political philosophy.

I’m a big supporter of Kemi Badenoch and I have no time for the impatient naysayers and critics (she’s only been in the job for a few months, give her time!), but I do hope that what emerges from the current period of reflection is a Conservative Party that reaffirms its neglected commitment to individual freedom and personal responsibility, and reins in MPs who don’t share those values.

Furthermore, the party needs a new generation of candidates who are prepared to fight for and defend a less intrusive style of government that doesn’t try to control our behaviour to the nth degree.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill – update on amendments

The Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee is meeting again today.

Members are discussing amendments to the Bill, including several that are potentially of interest or concern to consumers.

One, for example, would 'prohibit the manufacture, design and retail sale of high-capacity count vaping devices'.

Another would ban the 'manufacture and sales of high-strength nicotine pouches'.

A third would ban 'the supply of cigarette filters which contain plastic or cigarettes containing cigarette filters which contain plastic'.

You may not be too fussed about those amendments, but what about the amendment that 'requires the Secretary of State to make regulations which would extend the existing prohibition on smoking in vehicles to all enclosed vehicles except ships and hovercraft which are regulated under other legislation. The prohibition currently only applies to workplace vehicles and vehicles carrying under 18s'.

If adopted, this amendment could ban smoking in all private cars.

Meanwhile another amendment 'would extend the power to designate areas as smoke-free to certain local authorities, by making byelaws'.

In other words, 'certain local authorities' might be given the power to ban smoking in just about any designated area that takes their fancy – including beer gardens.

Interestingly, the latter was the subject of a written question tabled recently by Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative MP for Thursk and Malton, who asked the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, 'with reference to page 99 of the English Devolution White Paper, CP 1218, whether councils will be able to ban smoking in public places under the new byelaw powers'.

I'm not sure why he asked that question but, in response, Jim McMahon, the minister for local government and English devolution, replied:

The government will work with councils to determine how byelaws should be made and whether byelaw making powers should be extended to Strategic Authorities, as set out in the English Devolution White Paper.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will extend smoke-free designation to outdoor places including outside schools, children’s playgrounds and hospitals but not to outdoor hospitality settings or wider open spaces like beaches. The proposed reforms under the Bill will be subject to a full consultation, and we want to hear the views of people from across the country on this to ensure we get it right. As drafted, the Bill does not give any additional powers to local authorities.

Last year Hollinrake was strongly opposed to a ban on smoking in beer gardens and outdoor terraces, so his question suggests that he too is worried that the smoking ban could be extended to designated outdoor areas via local authorities if not central government.

That, of course, is the debate that took place when the previous (Conservative) government introduced its Business and Planning Bill in July 2020, following the first Covid lockdown.

That Bill was designed to reduce red tape in order to help businesses recover more quickly from the impact of the pandemic, but anti-smoking peers saw an opportunity to ban smoking in the new licensed pavement areas that had sprung up all over the country.

Robert Jenrick, the then business secretary, stood reasonably firm on the issue. Nevertheless, he was forced to compromise and give local authorities the power to deny licences to businesses that wanted to allow smoking in new licensed pavement areas.

Thanks to Jenrick a national ban was averted, and to date fewer than a dozen local authorities in England have taken advantage of the power that was given them, but it remains a threat, not least because Labour supported a ban on smoking in new licensed pavement areas.

We knew then that the issue wouldn’t go away, which is why we are monitoring the progress of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, and amendments like this.

Giving local authorities the power to extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I am reminded of what happened when it was suggested, 20 years ago, that instead of a national ban, local authorities should be given the power to ban smoking in pubs.

Driven by the big pub companies, the pub industry argued that a national ban would be easier for them to implement - less admin, I suppose, dealing with central government rather than negotiating with numerous local authorities – and the same could happen again.

As soon as I discover the fate of these amendments I'll let you know.

What's in a name? The slow erasure of 'tobacco'

Last month I wrote about the demise of Tobacco Reporter magazine whose final print and digital editions were published in December.

I was disappointed because TR had been good to Forest, interviewing me on a couple of occasions and publishing articles about a number of our events including, in that final issue, a piece about our 2024 Smoke On The Water boat party.

The TMA (founded in 1915 as the Tobacco Merchants Association) were the publishers, having acquired the title from SpecComm International, a North Carolina-based publisher and conference organiser, in 2019.

A few days after I wrote 'Stubbed out - world’s oldest tobacco trade magazine to close', I added a postscript, noting that the TMA (not to be confused with the Tobacco Manufacturers Association in the UK) was changing its name again, erasing any reference or allusion to tobacco.

In future it will be known as the Nicotine Resource Consortium.

The new name was duly announced last week in an email that included some rather toe-curling corporate-speak:

This project is more than a rebrand. It is the capstone of a multi-year process to ensure sustainable operations that facilitate the conferences and information you depend upon.

Naturally it includes a new logo, and there will also be a new URL for the new website: nicotine360.org.

So far so interesting. But there's more.

Over the weekend, on LinkedIn, Global Action to End Smoking (formerly the Foundation for a Smoke Free World), posted its support for the proposal by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to limit the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.

If approved by the incoming Trump administration this would effectively prohibit the overwhelming majority of combustible tobacco products currently on the market in the USA.

The remarkable thing is, the president and CEO of the Nicotine Resource Consortium (formerly the TMA and before that the Tobacco Merchants Association), 'liked' GA's post.

Fancy that!

PS. What if we were to rename Forest? Instead of the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco, how about the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Consuming Nicotine, or FORECN?

Then again, perhaps not.

Playing with numbers

Breaking ‘news’.

According to new calculations by the Adam Smith Institute, a leading think tank, promoting safer alternatives to cigarettes could save 19 million years of life by 2030, and up to £12.6 billion every year.

Back in 2018 the ASI claimed that switching to vaping could save one million years of life (an interesting concept that plays into the modern cult of longevity, and a nice round figure to boot).

In 2002 that became two million years of life. Now it’s 19 million. What next - 25, 50, one BILLION?

Frankly, this type of estimate is embarrassing, not just because it almost certainly bears no relation to reality, but because it is so clearly designed to generate a cheap headline.

The anti-smoking industry plays this game all the time. According to ASH last week, new estimates show that smoking costs society in England £43.7 billion a year, an estimate that has risen from £13 billion, then £17 billion, in less than a decade.

It’s nonsense, and the ASI’s calculations are nonsense too.

I have known Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler, co-founders of the ASI, for 45 years, and on a personal level I have much to be grateful to them for.

I have no such allegiance to the younger generation of free marketeers, some of whom are happy to jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon if it suits their agenda.

The latest ASI paper even quotes research by ASH, but that’s not surprising because their modus operandi seems much the same - think of a number then double or quadruple it.

Then, when the media loses interest, go for broke with an even bigger number, a figure so fantastical that it doesn’t just jump the shark, it uses a pole vault to do so.

As I wrote in 2018, I agree that vaping has been a free market success story. I said it again (for the umpteenth time) a few weeks ago, but to claim that switching to vapes can save one, two or 19 million years of life is absurd.

I appreciate that the the aim of the ASI paper is to highlight the counter-productive effects of creeping prohibition, including the ban on disposable vapes, but employing such a broad guesstimate doesn’t reflect well on the credibility of the research.

It’s true of course that the biggest argument in favour of switching to vapes is the probability that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking. But that argument is looking less and less sustainable - not because it isn’t true but because the media, and therefore public opinion, is moving in the opposite direction.

A few days ago, for example, it was reported that Paul Danan, the Hollyoaks star, dies aged 46 after ‘obsessive vaping’ habit (Telegraph).

This led to a flurry of articles including The risks of vaping and how to quit (Telegraph), The truth about vaping - and real dangers you can't ignore (inews), and The dangerous impact vaping can have on your lungs (Metro).

Yesterday the Blackpool Gazette ran a story with the headline, ‘Blackpool dad, 20, in coma for two weeks with collapsed lung after continuous vaping’, and this morning it was reported that ‘Vape experts reveal how to get rid of 'vaper's tongue' as doctor issues warning about long-term side effect’.

I’m as sceptical as anyone about the veracity of these reports, but they represent a tiny, tiny fraction of the tsunami of stories and studies that are going to be published over the next decade or so highlighting the alleged risks of vaping.

We’ve seen plenty of evidence of this already but, believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Public health campaigners and politicians have a template - otherwise known as the tobacco playbook - and they will follow it ruthlessly en route to prohibiting, if possible, all recreational nicotine products. It’s just a matter of time.

Part of that playbook is to commission studies that will highlight and exaggerate each and every potential risk to demonise and denormalise both the product and the user. Those are the rules of their game and anyone who plays along in a vain attempt to win their support for a less harmful nicotine product is going to get chewed up and spat out.

As I have said ad nauseum for many years, arguing that vaping is ‘safer’ than smoking will only help for a limited period. In the longer term the public health goal is to stop consumers using any product that contains nicotine (cigarettes, vapes, pouches and so on).

The health argument in favour of vaping will only go so far because as soon as the public decides that vaping has its own significant health risks (and we’re not far off that perception) the game is up, regardless of the actual evidence.

We saw it with secondhand smoke. To this day the evidence that passive smoking is a serious health risk to non-smokers is still questionable but, following decades of reports and propaganda, the public (by and large) accepts what they have read or been told.

The same will undoubtedly happen with vaping and there’s almost nothing the pro-vaping lobby can do about it. The more they play the prohibitionists’ game and bang on about the ‘millions of years’ lost to smoking, the more they are condemning vaping to a similar fate.

The health risks of vaping may be significantly less than the risks of smoking, but focussing on health as the number one argument for vaping (whilst ignoring the most fundamental argument of all - an adult’s right to choose, regardless of the risks) leaves vaping extremely vulnerable.

If switching to vaping could save 19 million years of life by 2030, how many years of life could be saved if people quit smoking and vaping by 2050?

My estimate, which I have just calculated on the back of a fag packet, is 100 million. Now prove me wrong.

See: Safer Alternatives to Cigarettes Could Save 19 Million Years of Life and Billions of Pounds by 2030 (ASI, January 2025)

See also: ‘Healthier, happier, freer’ (Taking Liberties, June 2018) and Number crunching (April 2022), in which I comment on previous ASI papers in this field.

Update: The ASI also promotes its new paper by quoting Labour MP Mary Glindon:

“The Government is right to strengthen its commitment to a Smoke-Free 2030 …”

Er, why is the Government right to strengthen its commitment to a Smoke-Free 2030? How very (neo) liberal of you!

Daylight robbery!

I received not one but three penalty charge notices this week.

They arrived in the same post but it wasn’t obvious what was in each envelope so they sat unopened until yesterday when my wife suggested it might be a good idea to check.

She knows that, as a general rule, I don't open anything that looks 'official' for several months, if at all. (Note: I don’t advise this as a pattern of behaviour.)

On this occasion she was concerned I may have picked up penalty points for exceeding London's ridiculously harsh inner city speed limit (20mph on many roads).

The 'good' news is that the PCNs had nothing to do with speeding. Instead they were for parking offences timed at 11.37, 11.44, and 11.55 on the same day in east London where my daughter lives.

I can't recall exactly what happened but I think I parked, very briefly, in one street (a residential parking area) before moving my car to a neighbouring street where I have parked before without penalty.

I was parked for no more than ten minutes in each location and for most of that time I didn't even leave the car.

OK, I didn’t have a residential parking permit but I wasn't denying a resident a parking space. There were several spaces available and I could have moved at a moment's notice. (It was January 2 so the roads weren’t as busy as normal.)

Nevertheless I have no legal defence which is why I have paid the fines, which were reduced by 50 per cent if paid within 14 days, but they still cost me £195 in total!

What struck me however was the evidence, the small black and white photos that identify very clearly both my car and the registration number.

Yes, I'm bang to rights, but there's no getting around the fact that we live surrounded by CCTV cameras watching our every move.

What does it matter, some might say. If you haven't done anything wrong, there's nothing to fear.

I am reminded that, 15 years ago, we organised a Free Society debate on this very subject. It was prompted by a comment by Dr Eamonn Butler, co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute, who noted the large number of speed cameras between Cambridge (where he lives) and Ely (where he was taking some American visitors to see the famous cathedral).

One of our panellists was the Conservative MP Philip Davies (who lost his seat at the last election but has the consolation of having been knighted a few months earlier).

Like Eamonn I believe the number of CCTV cameras in Britain to be excessive. (I think we have a greater concentration of surveillance cameras per mile, or head of population, than any country in the world.)

Philip, however, took a different view, and although he was heckled for defending their ubiquity, he made a strong case and I was partly won over by his argument that without surveillance cameras many serious crimes would go unsolved.

I remain torn however. There is something about the vast number of CCTV cameras in this country that concerns me, especially when they are used to prosecute or fine people (like me!) for what I consider to be the most innocuous, victim-free, offence.

I take Philip's point that CCTV cameras are there to protect us. But then I look again at those three penalty charge notices and think ...

WTF – daylight robbery!!

Tackling smoking still not a top priority for the public

The Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee (stuffed full of MPs who voted for the Bill at second reading) met twice this week to consider further amendments to the Bill.

I’ll post about them later. In the meantime, Yonder Consulting has conducted two new polls relevant to the Bill.

I wrote about the first on Tuesday (see New poll, same result).

According to the survey of 2,009 adults, 60% said people should be allowed to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products when they are legally an adult at 18; 30% (less than a third) said they should not; and 10% said 'don't know'.

The second new poll, conducted on Monday and Tuesday (13-14 January), confirms what similar polls have demonstrated for many years.

Asked to rate ten domestic issues according to how important or not important they are, ‘tackling smoking’ once again rates very low.

According to the poll, the public thinks the TOP priorities for government should be:

• tackling problems with the health service
• tackling energy costs
• tackling crime
• addressing care for the elderly

Of the ten listed issues, the least important (by a substantial margin) are:

• tackling obesity
• tackling smoking

Only 29% of respondents think it's very important that the Government tackles smoking, compared to tackling:

• problems with the health service (83%)
• energy costs (74%)
• inflation (72%)
• crime (72%)
• care for the elderly (70%)
• illegal immigration (61%)
• housing shortage (58%)
• climate change (51%)
• obesity (31%)

I know this is not ‘hold the front page’ news but it's worth noting because if Keir Starmer thinks the Tobacco and Vapes Bill might give him and his government a poll boost, he's going to be disappointed.

Tackling smoking didn’t save Sunak and it won’t rescue Starmer …

Onward!

I was a bit surprised to hear that Sir Simon Clarke, my near namesake and the former MP and Cabinet member, had been appointed director of Onward.

It’s not that I think he won’t do a good job, but Clarke is on the centre right of the party and Onward, a think tank founded in 2018, always struck me as being on the centrist, wishy washy left of the party.

Labour MP Lucy Powell, now Leader of the House of Commons, arguably thought so: “I think Onward are a fantastic think tank”, she is reputed to have said.

That may be but hopefully this is a political realignment and Clarke's appointment will signal a new dawn for a think tank that was also described as ‘close to Rishi Sunak's Downing Street’. Enough said.

Either way, now that Sir Simon is back in the Westminster bubble, does that mean I can expect more media requests that, on closer inspection, are intended not for me but for him?

At least that isn’t as bad as being summoned to the House of Commons to meet an MP, only to find that the person the MP thought he was meeting was … Simon Clarke.

See: What’s in a name?, Confusion reigns, and Another case of mistaken identity

PS. As I write this, Onward is hosting a keynote speech by Kemi Badenoch, which is a good sign. A penny for Lucy Powell’s thoughts!

Lib Dem MP proposed raising age of sale of tobacco to 25

The Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee has been meeting to discuss and debate amendments to the Bill.

There will be a further two sittings today.

The biggest surprise so far was the amendment, submitted by Helen Maguire, the Lib Dem MP for Epsom and Ewell, to raise the age of sale of tobacco to 25.

It was a surprise because many of us were expecting an amendment to raise the age of sale from 18 to 21. Where 25 came from I’m not quite sure but the gist of the argument seemed to be that, as most smokers start when they are young, extending the legal age of sale to 25 should more than cover that age group so there is no need for a generational ban. (I paraphrase.)

Maguire is not on the public bill committee, and cannot therefore move amendments in Committee, so it was moved on her behalf by Dr Caroline Johnson, the Conservative shadow health minister.

Johnson, who supports the generational ban, made it clear she didn’t support Maguire's amendment but felt it should be debated "so that hon. Members can establish for themselves whether they wish to support" it.

"Although the amendments were tabled by a Member who is not a member of my party, and I do not actually agree with them, I want to ensure that they get a proper hearing."

To be clear, had Maguire's amendment been passed (spoiler alert: it wasn’t) it would have replaced the generational tobacco sales ban.

When it came to a vote it was supported by just two members of the Committee, Jack Rankin and Sarah Bool, two of the four Conservatives on the Committee, with 14 against. (Johnson and Gregory Stafford, the fourth Conservative on the Committee, both voted against.)

Neither of the two Lib Dems on the Committee (Liz Jarvis and Danny Chambers) supported their colleague's amendment, and I'm guessing the only reason Bool and Rankin voted for it is because they concluded that raising the age of sale to 25 was marginally better than a generational ban, which they oppose.

Nevertheless, fair play to the pair of them. Their voices have been loud and clear. Rankin, in particular, has spoken at length, often opposing his Conservative colleague, Caroline Johnson, who is an enthusiastic supporter of further tobacco control measures.

But I'll come back to those blue on blue divisions in another post. I'll return too to some of the other amendments that, if adopted, might be cause for concern.

In the meantime Forest’s written submission to the Committee has now been posted on the Parliament website. The full list (there are currently 53 written submissions) can be found here.