Debate contribution: Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Debate contribution by Mr Robin Swann on 21 May 2024.

MLA

Mr Robin Swann

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

21 May 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4491419

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

In October 2023, the UK Government announced their intention to create a smoke-free generation in England by stopping children who turned 15 this year, or younger, from ever legally being sold cigarettes. They proposed that the consultation be UK-wide, with a view to aligning our policy approaches where doing so would improve outcomes, and allowing for collective action to tackle the harm caused by tobacco use and youth vaping. A UK-wide consultation concluded in December 2023. Following that consultation, Health Ministers in Scotland and Wales agreed in principle to those countries being included in a UK-wide Bill, subject to the necessary legislative consents. The return of our Assembly allowed a brief opportunity for a review of Northern Ireland's position on the matter. I subsequently indicated to the UK Government my support for the inclusion of Northern Ireland, subject to the necessary consent from the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. On 21 February, the First Minister and the deputy First Minister agreed in principle to the progression of a legislative consent motion (LCM) and to a legislative consent memorandum concerning Northern Ireland's inclusion in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. The Bill was introduced in the House of Commons on 20 March. My Department provided oral and written briefings on the Bill to the Committee for Health, and it agreed to support the motion at its meeting on 18 April. I thank my Executive colleagues and the Committee for Health for their support and timely response. It may be helpful to Members if I now summarise the provisions of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. The current legal age for the sale of tobacco is 18. The Westminster Bill will make it an offence for anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 to be sold tobacco products. The measures are in line with the recommendations made in the Khan review of England's smoke-free ambition, which was published in 2022. I make it clear from the outset that there is no intention to criminalise smoking. Existing adult smokers will not be stopped from buying or smoking cigarettes, although I urge them to seek the help of local cessation services to help them quit, owing to the very harmful impacts of any amount of tobacco smoke on health. The policy intention is therefore to stop people from ever starting to smoke, thus preventing a lifetime of addiction. The impact will be that children currently aged 15 and under, who are not currently legally permitted to be sold tobacco, will not be able to be sold tobacco legally when they turn 18 and beyond. The onus will be on the seller, and any offences will be committed by the seller and not the individual who makes the purchase, unless the purchaser is doing so on behalf of someone who is under the legal age of sale, which is so-called proxy purchasing. The Bill will make the necessary age-related changes to existing compulsory retail signage and proxy purchasing offences. The key provisions on e-cigarettes, or vapes, are regulation-making powers, which will allow for a number of measures to be put in place. Those include restrictions on vape flavours and packaging and bans on point-of-sale displays for all nicotine products and vapes. There are already similar measures in place for tobacco products. The current e-cigarette manufacturer notification system operating in GB will also be able to be extended to include other nicotine products and non-nicotine vapes, and those provisions may also be extended to Northern Ireland with our consent. Currently, manufacturers that access the Northern Ireland market are required to notify nicotine-containing e-cigarettes on the EU common entry gate (EU-CEG) system, but there are no EU requirements for non-nicotine vapes or other nicotine products. In addition, the age restrictions that currently apply to nicotine vapes will be able to be extended to include non-nicotine vapes through Northern Ireland regulations, and we will be able to address current loopholes in the free distribution to children of non-nicotine vapes and nicotine products. It is intended that Parts 4 and 5 of the Bill, which deal with product standards, such as flavours, packaging and manufacturing notifications, will be addressed through UK-wide regulations made by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. They may relate to public health issues or consumer protection, so Northern Ireland's inclusion in those regulations will be subject to our consent. The Secretary of State has committed to further consultation on regulatory proposals for product standards for vapes, such as flavour restrictions, and there will be ongoing engagement with the devolved Administrations to ensure an agreed, evidence-based approach to such regulations. Regulations on provisions about point-of-sale display, free distribution of vapes and age-of-sale restrictions on non-nicotine vapes will be made locally by my Department and will be subject to the draft affirmative resolution procedure in the Assembly. We have agreed to a Committee for Health request to engage with it and also with the Youth Assembly on subsequent regulations. On a technical point, and for the record, I bring to the House's attention an amendment that I requested to the powers in clause 53, which the Westminster Bill's scrutiny Committee has accepted. On the advice of the Department of Justice's offences and penalties experts and the Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC), I have requested that the penalty for any such offence created by regulations align with those for the age-of-sale offence. That is to be a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum. That, in turn, allows for the use of a fixed penalty notice in relation to offences created through subsequent regulations. I will summarise the results of the UK-wide public consultation that was held late last year. The results were published on 29 January. There is particularly strong support for the measures from the people in Northern Ireland. The consultation received 27,025 responses from individuals, 1,221 of which were from Northern Ireland, which equates to 4·5% of the total responses. That represents a high response rate in relation to the Northern Ireland population. Some 62·5% of UK respondents reported that they were in favour of the smoke-free generation proposal, with the highest support coming from Northern Ireland, at 79%. Similarly, support was much higher in Northern Ireland for the other proposals, which included 75·6% supporting a restriction on vape flavours; 85·3% supporting a restriction on the display of vapes; and 66% supportive of prohibiting the use of all imagery, colouring and branding. Whilst the Bill contains provisions that clearly fall within the competence of the Assembly, as they address public health or consumer protection matters, bringing forward our own primary legislation could pose a number of risks. Therefore, Northern Ireland's inclusion in the Bill offers the most expedient way of bringing forward these measures. If we were to progress through our own primary legislation, there would be opportunity costs, as we would have to redirect resources to such legislation. It is also unlikely that we would be able to bring the measures forward at the same pace as the rest of the United Kingdom, and that would put Northern Ireland's population at a disadvantage in these important public health measures. Given the overwhelming public support in Northern Ireland for the measures, it is my duty to seek the same provisions as those offered in the other devolved Administrations. I believe that we would face considerable public criticism if we were to reject this opportunity. It is also expected that there will be strong opposition to the Bill from the tobacco industry and that legal challenges are possible. I believe that they would be better dealt with by a UK Government on behalf of all the UK. I turn now to why I believe we need these measures. I am sure that Members are well aware of the harms caused by tobacco and of the growing concern over vaping, especially by young people. Those harms are the reasons why the legislation is so important for Northern Ireland. I will recap on some of the key facts on tobacco. Tobacco use is the number-one cause of preventable illness and premature death. Each year, more than 2,000 people in Northern Ireland die from smoking-attributable conditions, as smoking increases the risk of more than 50 serious health conditions. For example, it accounts for 70% of lung cancer cases and over one in four of all cancer deaths. Tobacco use also increases, substantially, the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes, and it increases the risk of premature birth and low birth weight. It is also of great concern that people with serious mental health conditions die 10 or 20 years earlier, and the biggest single factor in that is smoking. Smoking is also a major cause of health inequality. Smoking rates in Northern Ireland's most-deprived areas are typically more than two and a half times higher than those in the least-deprived areas, and, subsequently, children of those smokers are more likely to smoke. Those inequalities manifest themselves in health outcomes, with the incidence of lung cancer in the most-deprived areas being two and a half times higher than that in the least-deprived areas. Therefore, smoking-attributable death rates in our deprived areas are double those in the least-deprived areas. My Department has a long-standing strategic aim of achieving a tobacco-free society. The generational approach to eliminating tobacco use that is proposed in the Bill offers a groundbreaking means by which to address this key public health threat for young people and future generations. I have listened to some argue that this is nanny statism, suggesting that the smoke-free generation proposals will deprive people of freedom of choice and that the decision to smoke or not smoke should be a personal choice. Sadly, smoking has little to do with personal choice. It results from an addiction to nicotine that usually starts at a young age. It is an addiction that is notoriously hard to overcome, and it has deadly consequences.

Smoking kills up to two thirds of smokers and, as I outlined, increases the risk of multiple serious health conditions. Three quarters of smokers say that they would never start if they had the choice again. I heard the Chief Medical Officer in England recount his observations of a smoker who had undergone limb amputations as a result of smoking and was crying as they lit yet another cigarette. That is how addictive smoking is. I can think of no better law than one that would prevent that misery for our future generations. Smoking does not just impact on smokers; it impacts on non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke and on families dealing with the illness and death of loved ones. Unfortunately, it also has implications for us all as taxpayers and users of health services. Members are all too aware of the financial pressures that our health service faces. In 2019-2020, Northern Ireland hospitals spent £218 million treating smoke-attributable conditions. The same year, there were 38,617 smoking-attributable hospital admissions. Every penny spent on treating tobacco-related illness is avoidable. The harsh reality is that that is money that our hospitals could use to address other pressures. Once the Bill passes into law, the age-of-sale changes will not be commenced until January 2027. If the Assembly agrees to Northern Ireland's inclusion in the Bill, we will use that lead time to engage with councils on enforcement functions and will continue to work closely with the UK Government on the development of guidance for retailers. I want to say a few words regarding our growing concern about the detrimental impact of vaping, particularly on young people. Vaping rates among young people here continue to rise, and recent Young Persons' Behaviour and Attitudes Survey data shows that current e-cigarette use rose from 5·7% in 2019 to 9·2% in 2020. However, among year 12 pupils, the growth in current use has been particularly concerning, with reported current use rising from 11·7% in 2019 to 23·6% in 2022. While-cigarettes may have a role to play in helping some people to stop smoking, the long-term harms of continued use are still unknown. The Institute of Public Health in Ireland took forward a rapid review of evidence on behalf of its Department and found strong, high-quality evidence of an association between e-cigarette use and subsequent tobacco cigarette use based on longitudinal data. The reviews included found that those who had used e-cigarettes in their lifetime had over three times the risk of tobacco cigarette use at follow-up. Those results support a conclusion that there is a gateway effect of those products. That substantiates my view and that of our Chief Medical Officer (CMO) that robust measures to address the appeal of those products to children are justified. The World Health Organization points to nicotine's deleterious impact on brain development, potentially leading to learning and anxiety disorders. The UK Government Command Paper relating to these proposals also includes the fact that there are high health risks associated with the other ingredients in vapes. The long-term health harms of inhaling colours and flavours are yet unknown, but they are certainly unlikely to be beneficial. In addition, there are growing concerns about the social and educational harms of vaping, with increasing numbers of post-primary schoolchildren at risk of disciplinary action, including suspensions, as schools attempt to deal with the number of children vaping on school premises. I turn now to the regulatory impact assessments that have been carried out. The smoke-free generation measures will result in some cost to retailers in lost profits, training costs and additionality. However, on a whole-economy basis, those are outweighed by the social benefits. The UK Government have published a UK-wide impact assessment, and the net present value for the Bill is estimated at £18·6 billion over 30 years. In other words, there will be a net benefit of £18·6 billion over the next 30 years to the UK economy, and that takes account of the healthcare and societal costs associated with smoking tobacco. Secondary legislation relating to vapes would be subject to further detailed impact assessments. Members may want to note that further restrictions on tobacco and e-cigarettes may come with some additional enforcement and communication costs. However, several of the measures are not new. For example, enforcement measures are already in place on the age of sale for tobacco and nicotine vapes. We will, of course, engage with enforcement authorities and the Public Health Agency (PHA) on those matters. Regarding human rights and an equality impact assessment (EQIA), the Department of Health and Social Care in England has confirmed that the Bill is compatible with the convention of rights. The UK screening exercise concluded that there is no evidence to suggest that a smoke-free generation policy will have a significant negative impact on people who live in rural areas or those with protected characteristics. In recognition of our local equality obligations, my Department has also completed screening exercises that will be published shortly and which have reached the same conclusions. I have received correspondence from Members, councillors and parents seeking additional measures to set smoke-free targets and to allow us to tackle the problems of youth vaping. While we have made good progress in reducing youth smoking rates in Northern Ireland, there is no room for complacency. Every year, approximately 127,000 new smokers are recruited across the United Kingdom. The UK Government Bill offers us a key opportunity to address the issues and to address them quickly. I ask Members to support the motion.

2,576 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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