Two days ago the Government quietly published the list of MPs who will sit on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee.
It would have been easy to miss because it was number 41 (under General Committees: Appointments) on a long list of items entitled ‘Chamber Business’.
The Committee is currently scheduled to meet from April 30 to May 23 when it will hear evidence from stakeholders and other interested parties and consider amendments to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
For the record, the 17 members of the Committee, who would have been chosen by Government and Opposition whips, are:
Nickie Aiken, Duncan Baker, Aaron Bell, Bob Blackman, Dr Lisa Cameron, Bambos Charalambous, Mary Kelly Foy, Preet Kaur Gill, Trudy Harrison, Dr Caroline Johnson, Andrea Leadsom, Rachael Maskell, Kirsten Oswald, Angela Richardson, Mr Virendra Sharma, Steve Tuckwell and Christian Wakeford.
Despite the fact that there was substantial and well publicised opposition to the Bill at the second reading last week, with 165 Conservative MPs - almost half the parliamentary party - either abstaining or voting against (58), the 17-member Committee contains not a single MP who voted against the Bill.
Instead, 16 out of the 17 MPs chosen to sit on the Committee voted in favour of the Bill, and the only one who didn't (Labour's Mary Kelly Foy – no vote recorded) is vice-chair of the APPG on Smoking and Health (which is run by ASH) so we know she supports the Bill and would have voted Aye had she been present.
Incredibly, no fewer than FOUR members (almost a quarter) of the Committee are also members of the APPG on Smoking and Health. Apart from Mary Kelly Foy, the others are Bob Blackman (Conservative), who is chairman of the APPG, Rachael Maskell (Labour), and Virendra Sharma (Labour).
Guido Fawkes has the story here with a comment by me. I don’t normally swear when representing Forest but on this occasion I felt it was justified.
“Committees don't need to be balanced but this is such an obvious stitch-up it's embarrassing.
“The make-up of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee is effectively a f*ck you to every MP who voted against the Bill, and every member of the public who opposes the generational smoking ban."