Parliamentary Matters 1
With all the fun of the disposables ban, Planet of the Vapes now catches up on what has been happening in Parliament with the first of five political articles this week
-
by Dave Cross
Share on:
With all the fun of the disposables ban, Planet of the Vapes now catches up on what has been happening in Parliament with the first of five political articles this week. The DUP’s Carla Lockhart wanted to know what the Department of Health is doing about illicit products getting into the hands of teens and the Conservative’s Richard Holden was concerned about high-puff devices.
Upper Bann’s Carla Lockhart asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps the Department has taken to tackle the sale of illegal and unregulated vaping products to children and young people.
Speaking on behalf of the Department for Health and Social Care, Ashley Dalton MP responded: “The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will strengthen enforcement and crack down on rogue retailers selling illegal and unregulated vape products to children and young people. The bill introduces new £200 fixed penalty notices in England and Wales for certain tobacco and vape offences, including underage sales, enables the introduction of a retail licensing scheme in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and enables the introduction of a new registration scheme for tobacco, vape, and nicotine products sold in the United Kingdom’s market.”
Amazingly, it was always illegal to sell vapes to ‘children and young people’ and yet the fines didn’t stop rogue traders selling non-MHRA compliant devices to them. Dalton does not explain why the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will work better.
Dalton continued: “The Government is investing £10 million of new funding in 2025/26 into Trading Standards, to support the enforcement of illicit and underage tobacco and vape sales in England, and to support the implementation of the measures in the bill. This funding is being used to boost the Trading Standards workforce by recruiting approximately 80 new apprentices. The new funding will also support the storage and recycling of seized illicit vapes, the additional work to identify and seize illicit vape consignments at ports, and the training of Trading Standards officers on the new single use vapes ban.
“The devolved administrations will need to fund the delivery of the devolved measures in the bill for their nations. The Barnett formula will apply in the usual way, and it is for the devolved administrations to allocate their funding in devolved areas as they see fit.
The introduction of a new Vaping Products Duty in October 2026 will provide civil and criminal powers to HM Revenue and Customs, in order to assess for duty and seize products and equipment used to produce or transport illicit vape products.”
Trade bodies and other experts have pointed out that this funding is insufficient to make up for the continual underfunding from previous governments and will not enable Trading Standards to clamp down on the black market, predicted to boom following the disposables ban.
Opposition Whip Richard Holden asked the Secretary of State what estimate has been made of the number of very high puff-count vaping devices which are refillable, rechargeable, and contain a replaceable coil available on the UK market.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care told him: “The ban on the sale and supply of single-use vapes came into force on Sunday 1 June. It is therefore too early to make a reliable estimate of the number of high-puff count vaping devices which are refillable, reusable, and which contain a replaceable coil.
“However, we are aware of a number of high-puff count vapes that are not captured by the single-use vape ban. The Department is taking powers through the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that will enable regulation of any high puff vape that is not captured by the ban.”
Again, Dalton is exhibiting a lack of knowledge – all devices on sale in the UK have to be registered with the MHRA, the government has access to the information Holden sought.
Worryingly, she then admitted to further restrictions heading vapers’ way: “The bill provides powers on product features that allows the Government to regulate the size of a tank or refill container, and the amount of liquid that can be included, as well as powers to standardise the size and shape of vapes, and to further restrict liquid availability. In addition, the bill contains powers that allow us to regulate the amount of nicotine in a puff, so the Government is able to restrict the nicotine not only in the tank, but also the nicotine that can be emitted in the vapour. The Government will consider this issue further as part of its secondary legislation programme after Royal Assent of the bill.”
This is so far removed from evidenced-based policy making that it makes a nonsense of the Department of Health’s position.
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.
