Parliament Matters
This week’s trip to the House of Commons sees Labour’s Paul Davies worried about funding for smoking cessation programmes and Lib Dem Susan Murray wanting plain packaging
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by Dave Cross
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This week’s trip to the House of Commons sees Labour’s Paul Davies worried about funding for smoking cessation programmes and asks what the plans are for 2025. Liberal Democrat Susan Murray expressed her desire for 95% safer vapes to be treated exactly the same as tobacco products and be forced to adopt plain packaging.
Paul Davies, Colne Valley’s MP, asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care how much funding the Department plans to provide for smoking cessation programmes in the 2025-26 financial year.
Ashley Dalton, Labour’s Minister for Public Health and Prevention, told her fellow party member: “The Government is providing £70 million of additional funding for local authority-led Stop Smoking Services in England in 2025/26.
“We will invest £10 million of new funding in 2025/26 to support Trading Standards to tackle underage and illicit tobacco and vape sales, and to support the implementation of the measures in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
“The Government is also investing over £100 million over five years to boost HM Revenue and Customs and Border Force’s enforcement capabilities to tackle illicit tobacco, supporting the Illicit Tobacco Strategy. Decisions on other smoking cessation programmes will be announced in due course.”
In articles detailing the Government’s pledges last year, Planet of the Vapes highlighted how £10,000,000 barely provides funding for one additional Trading Standards officer per department.
Mid Dunbartonshire’s Susan Murray then asked the Secretary of State if he will bring forward legislative proposals to regulate the packaging of vapes to provide similar safeguards to that of cigarettes.
Ashley Dalton responded: “It is very worrying that approximately 25% of 11 to 15-year-olds have tried vaping, despite the risks of nicotine addiction. Evidence suggests that vapes appeal to children because of the brightly coloured packaging, amongst other child-friendly features.”
The word ‘evidence’ is doing some seriously heavy lifting here.
She continued: “Evidence also indicates that the nicotine content descriptions on vape packaging are not consistent between packaging, preventing adults from making informed decisions on nicotine strength.”
Do you know an adult who hasn’t been able to make an informed choice on nicotine strength? Nope, here neither.
And on it goes: “The Tobacco and Vapes Bill provides my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care with regulation-making powers to introduce new requirements on retail packaging, including for vaping products and nicotine products. There is a balance to be struck between reducing the appeal of vapes to non-smokers, particularly children, whilst considering the implications for adult smokers to ensure we can achieve the greatest possible impact.
“It is our intention to regulate the appeal of vapes to children, whilst minimising the impact on adult smokers. We plan on consulting on the preferred options to get this balance right as soon as possible after the bill gains Royal Assent.”
The one thing we can guarantee is that “minimising the impact on adult smokers” will probably feature low on the final list of priorities.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave 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.
