My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and other noble Lords for bringing this discussion on tobacco control before the Committee today. In responding to these amendments, I begin by emphasising the Government’s commitment to the smoke-free agenda. Over the past two decades, successive Governments have successfully introduced a strong range of public health interventions and regulatory reforms to help smokers quit and protect future generations from using tobacco. Our reforms have included raising the age of sale of tobacco from 16 to 18, the introduction of a tobacco display ban, standardised packaging for tobacco products and a ban on smoking in cars with children.
The Government are committed to making this country smoke free by 2030, and we will outline our plans in a new tobacco control plan to be published later this year. As part of our Smokefree 2030 programme of work, I am pleased to announce that we have launched an independent review into smoking. The review, led by Javed Khan OBE, will make a set of focused policy and regulatory recommendations to government on the most impactful interventions to reduce the uptake of smoking and support people to stop smoking for good. I am sure he will consider many of the policies raised by noble Lords in today’s debate as part of his review, which is expected to report in late April.
The action I consider vital for the Government is to conduct research and build a robust evidence base before bringing any additional measures forward, such as those outlined in Amendment 276, which would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring tobacco manufacturers to print health warnings on individual cigarettes and rolling papers. This evidence-base principle also applies before raising a proposal, even through a consultation such as that outlined in the requirement in Amendment 270 to consult on raising the age of sale.
Several amendments that have been put forward by noble Lords are not required, because relevant legislation is already in place. For example, legislation is already in place that prohibits the sale of tobacco and e-cigarettes to under-18s, including proxy sales, as outlined in Amendment 271, and provision to enable this to be extended to all nicotine products. While we support proposals further to protect young people from these products, we do not have the evidence base at present to suggest that free distribution is a widespread problem. We challenged the industry on this, and it claimed that it is targeting only smokers who are over 18 when it gives free samples. Whatever one may say about that, there would undoubtedly be reputational damage to businesses if they did give out samples to minors. I am sure that evidence in this area will be gratefully received by the department.
When looking at further regulation of e-cigarettes, we need to assess which policies provide us with the best opportunities to reach our bold Smokefree 2030 ambition. Once we have fully considered the evidence, the most ambitious policies will be included in a new tobacco control plan. I do not in the least intend to sound complacent, but it is worth noting that in 2018 regular use of e-cigarettes among 11 to 15 year-olds remained very low, at 2%.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, referred to nicotine pouches. There are existing powers in the Children and Families Act 2014 which allow us to extend the age-of-sale restrictions to include any nicotine products, such as nicotine pouches, so the proposed new clause is not strictly needed in relation to sales.
We recognise the need to address disparities in smoking across the country and we are committed to helping people quit smoking and to levelling up outcomes, as referenced in the recent levelling-up White Paper. There is already a lot of good work going on within both the NHS and local authorities in this area, but it is a theme that we will be developing in our tobacco control plan.
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There is already legislation in place under the Children and Families Act 2014 which would cover introducing a requirement for manufacturers to insert leaflets containing health information inside cigarette packaging. Inserts could be required for public health messaging through amendments to the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015—the SPOT regulations, for short. The current SPOT regulations prohibit the use of inserts as, during their development, there was limited evidence that placing public health messaging inserts inside cigarette packets was more
effective than messaging on the outside of packs. As noble Lords may be aware, the Government have a statutory duty to undertake a post-implementation review of the SPOT regulations to assess whether they have met their objectives. This is currently in progress and we will publish the report of the review as soon as possible.
Amendments 272 to 275, relating to the regulation of prices and the profits of tobacco manufacturers and importers, are a matter for Her Majesty’s Treasury, given that they relate to taxation. As my noble friend Lord Young is aware, the tobacco industry is already required to make a contribution to public finances through tobacco duty, VAT and corporation tax, and we have kept tobacco taxation high as a means to help smokers quit. The Department for Health and Social Care will, along with other interested departments, such as Her Majesty’s Treasury, continue to consider and review the most effective regulatory means of making the industry pay for the harm its products cause our population.
Amendment 278 would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to make regulations, no later than six months after the Bill has passed, to change the current flavour ban, which is based on characterising flavours in cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco, to one based on all flavours for all tobacco products, as well as accessories used to flavour tobacco products. Through the Tobacco and Related Product Regulations 2016, we have already banned characterising flavours in cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco. This means flavours that are noticeable before or during smoking the product. While the Government are sympathetic to the aims of this amendment, I come back to the issue of evidence. We will need to review the evidence on why banning flavours is better than the current characterising flavours regulations, taking into account the enforcement costs. The Government are also in the process of a post-implementation review on the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 and will publish our response soon.
Amendment 279 would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to consult on the retail packaging and labelling of electronic cigarettes and other novel nicotine products no later than six months after the Bill has passed. While we are committed to ensuring our regulatory framework continues to protect young people and non-smokers from using e-cigarettes, the latest data from the 2021 ASH YouGov Smokefree youth GB survey suggests that the regular use of e-cigarettes by young people remains low. Again, the post-implementation reviews currently under way for both the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 and the SPOT regulations will be published soon, and we await their outcomes to see if they have found concerns with the current regulatory framework. The independent review work may also identify policy proposals to protect youth from e-cigarettes and other novel nicotine products, and we await the outcome of this.
I hope I have been able to convince the Committee that, while we are sympathetic to the aims of many of these amendments, we will need to review the evidence of public health benefits from the measures and costs to business before bringing forward legislation in this
area. The Government are committed to a smoke-free country by 2030. As I mentioned earlier, the independent review led by Javed Khan OBE will identify to the Government the most impactful interventions to reduce the uptake of smoking and support people to stop smoking. As I said, we will outline those plans in our new tobacco control plan to be published later this year. Against that background, I ask noble Lords to consider withdrawing or not moving their amendments.