Parliament Matters

Sammy Wilson asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if a comparative estimate of the costs of implementing a one-time increase in the legal purchase age of tobacco and introducing an age escalator will be made.

Soon to be ex-Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care, Andrew Gwynne, responded: “Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death, disability, and ill health. It causes approximately 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom, one in four of all cancer deaths, and kills up to two-thirds of its users.

“Smoking also substantially increases the risk of many major health conditions throughout people’s lives, such as strokes, diabetes, heart disease, stillbirth, dementia, and asthma. Three quarters of smokers wish they had never started smoking but are unable to stop due to the addictive nature of tobacco.

“It is estimated that smoking costs the country £21.8 billion a year in England. This includes an annual £18.3 billion loss to productivity, through smoking related lost earnings, unemployment, and early death, as well as costs to the National Health Service and social care of over £2 billion.

“On 5 November 2024, the Department published an impact assessment on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. This found that the introduction of the smoke-free generation policy, the progressive increase in the age of sale, will get smoking rates in England for 14 to 30 year olds to 0% as early as 2050. Over the next 50 years it will save tens of thousands of lives, and avoid up to 130,000 cases of cases of lung cancer, strokes, and heart disease.

“The impact assessment explored a one-time age increase, but this has been discounted as it does not achieve the policy objective to prevent future generations from ever taking up smoking and getting smoking prevalence to 0% to achieve a smoke-free United Kingdom. Simply raising the age of sale to one set year will only raise the age that people start smoking, and would not break the cycle of addiction and disadvantage.”

No, we’ve no idea how this word soup answered Wilson’s question either.

Sammy Wilson then asked Gwynne if the cost of retailer staff training is a one-off cost and reflects ongoing costs in relation to planned secondary legislation relating to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Gwynne told him: “The estimated familiarisation and staff training costs included in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill impact assessment are assumed to be one-off costs, and individual estimates are provided for each specific policy.

“The bill will gradually end the sale of tobacco products across the country, so an individual born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be legally sold these products, including through proxy purchasing. Although it will mean the legal age of sale effectively increases by one year each year, the regulations will not change every year. This means it will be a one-off cost for retailers in terms of training staff.

“Some indicative estimates for staff training are included for secondary legislation. This, however, will be subject to consultation and, where proportionate, further work will be completed to assess the costs and benefits of these measures.

“We will continue to work closely with retailers to support them in implementing the smoke-free generation policy in the future.”

We are certain that retailers will be over the moon with that answer.

Tan Dhesi asked the Department of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) what steps are being taken to prevent increased quantities of disposable vapes being imported before June 2025.

He also asked to know what steps are being taken to ensure that importers comply with the ban on disposable vapes from June 2025.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary Mary Creagh replied: “Single-use vapes are extremely wasteful and blight the streets of our towns and cities.

“Banning these vapes will stop them from being thrown into bins with general waste, where they typically end up in landfill or being incinerated, posing a fire risk due to their lithium-ion batteries and can cause poor air quality. Furthermore, it will stop plastic, lead, and mercury from leaching into the environment, which can cause waterways to be contaminated and poison our wildlife.

“We are working to ensure that businesses are aware of the obligations that they will have under the single-use vapes supply ban. We are advising that businesses should not be purchasing further single-use vapes and have made this clear in the business guidance we have published.”

Again, word soup that fails to provide a detailed response to either question.

Finally, the DUP’s Gregory Campbell asked the Department for Health and Social Care if there are any plans to fund a financial incentives scheme to help pregnant women to stop smoking.

Fresh into Gwynne’s old post, Ashley Dalton told him: “Health is a devolved matter. In England, the Government is funding a broad package of measures to support current smokers to quit, including the National Smoke-free Pregnancy Incentives Scheme. The future settlement for the scheme will be confirmed in due course.”

Not exactly a week for detail.

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.