Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee (part one)
Tuesday, January 7, 2025 at 11:32 The Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee is meeting today.
When Rishi Sunak’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill reached the committee stage last year I wrote about it here, noting the appalling bias in the choice of committee members:
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).
See 'Stitch up - how low will this government go?'. The Guido Fawkes website also ran the story here – Smoking banners run from scrutiny.
Sunak’s Bill was subsequently abandoned when he called an early general election but, following the second reading of the revised Tobacco and Vapes Bill in November, a new committee was appointed to consider the Bill, including possible amendments.
The 17 members of the new Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee are Dr Zubir Ahmed, Alex Barros-Curtis, Sarah Bool, Phil Brickell, Dr Danny Chambers, Dr Beccy Cooper, Jim Dickson, Andrew Gwynne, Liz Jarvis, Dr Caroline Johnson, Mary Kelly Foy, Tristan Osborne, Taiwo Owatemi, Jack Rankin, Gregory Stafford, Euan Stainbank and Rosie Wrighting.
It’s almost but not quite as one-sided as before.
Eleven of the 17 are Labour MPs and, as we know, Labour MPs are whipped to support the Bill so every one of them voted 'aye' at the second reading.
More interesting are the other six members of the Committee, four of them Conservatives, plus two Lib Dems.
The Conservatives are Sarah Bool, Dr Caroline Johnson, Jack Rankin, and Gregory Stafford. Apart from Johnson (elected in a by-election in December 2016), the others were all elected in July 2024.
Johnson, who is currently a shadow minister (health and social care), voted in favour of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill at second reading in November.
Bool voted against the Bill, while Rankin and Stafford didn't record a vote.
Of the two Lib Dems on the Tobacco and Vapes Committee, Dr Danny Chambers and Liz Jarvis both voted for the Bill at second reading. In contrast, there is no place for even one of the seven Lib Dem MPs who voted against the Bill.
Therefore, of the 17 members of the Committee considering the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, just one voted against it at second reading. (Rankin is most likely against but I couldn't say for sure.)
Meanwhile, what of the ‘experts’ invited to give evidence to the Committee? This morning's witnesses (see here) were:
Panel 1: Professor Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England; Sir Francis Atherton, Chief Medical Officer for Wales; Professor Sir Michael McBride, Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland; and Professor Sir Gregor Ian Smith, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland.
They were followed by Hazel Cheeseman, CEO of Action on Smoking and Health; Sheila Duffy, chief executive, ASH Scotland; Suzanne Cass, chief executive, ASH Wales; and Naomi Thomson, health Improvement manager, Cancer Focus Northern Ireland (panel 2).
Then Ian Walker, executive director of policy, information and communications, Cancer Research UK; and Sarah Sleet, CEO, Asthma + Lung UK (panel 3).
Quelle surprise! The only surprise (if you can call it that) was the time each group of witnesses were allocated.
The four chief medical officers had approximately one hour, but Cheeseman, Duffy, Cass and Thomson were granted a mere 30 minutes before the session concluded with Walker and Sleet, who were given 20 minutes (approx).
The next session (Panel 4) will start at 2.00pm this afternoon so I'll update you with the next group of witnesses when they appear.
Alternatively you can watch it here on the Parliament TV channel.
Panel 4: The afternoon session began with three more witnesses - David Fothergill, chairman, community wellbeing board; Prof Tracy Daszkiewicz, executive director of public health, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, Gwent; and Alison Challenger, tobacco and vapes lead, Association of Directors of Public Health.
It won’t surprise you to hear that Fothergill (a Conservative councillor) began by welcoming the legislation, “from a local authority perspective”.
Panel 5: Next up is our old friend Linda Bauld who has the floor to herself.
Linda is introduced as “the Bruce and John Usher professor of public health and co-head of the the Centre for Population Health Science at the University of Edinburgh” but is better known to us as a long-standing advocate of further tobacco control measures.
Welcome Linda!
Panel 6: Moving swiftly on, the next panel of witnesses features Lord Michael Bichard and Wendy Martin, chair and director of the National Trading Standards.
No sign (yet!) of anyone representing the tobacco or vaping industries or the consumer. Don’t hold your breath!
Panel 7: Next up … Inga Becker-Hansen, policy advisor for retail products, British Retail Consortium.
Panel 8: Next witness … Matthew Shanks, chief executive of Education South West, a multi-academy trust in Devon.
Panel 9: Followed by Dr Laura Squire OBE, chief healthcare quality and access officer at the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Panel 10: Professor Steve Turner, president, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health; and Professor Sanjay Agrawal, National Specialty Adviser for Tobacco Dependency at NHS England, Chair of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group.
And now, the final witness of the day … it’s Andrew Gwynne MP, public health minister and a member of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill Committee.
Seriously?
Reader Comments (2)
What a shame their metropolitan obsession with ensuring kids can never smoke takes presedence over tackling grooming gangs and no doubt the black market cigarettes that are used to lure young girls into the hell of sexual abuse
These working class hating bullies have no idea what constitutes real harm. They just want to hammer down on anyone who isn't as posh as they are. They are just snobs plain and simple.
Shame on the lot of them.
I smoked for 43 years, and gave up 2 years ago helped by vapes, the government is seeking to outlaw the flavours and types I like. I will import the vapes myself, either online or travelling to purchase them in person. I didn't and don't consent to the law, therefore I will refuse to comply!