Debate contribution: Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Legislative Consent Motion
Debate contribution by Mr Danny Donnelly on .
- MLA
- Mr Danny Donnelly
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 21 May 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Executive Committee Business
- Heading
- Tobacco and Vapes Bill: Legislative Consent Motion
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4491448
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I thank the Minister of Health for his work on the LCM, which I welcome the opportunity to support today. As the Chair of the Health Committee said, the Committee has considered it in detail. I thank departmental officials for their helpful updates and for answering our questions on the matter. Smoking is the largest preventable cause of illness and premature death. It is also a key factor in health inequalities and life expectancy, often coinciding with social deprivation. For the purpose of this debate, what is particularly concerning is that, according to the health survey Northern Ireland 2022-23, approximately two thirds of adult smokers take up smoking before the age of 18 and over 80% before the age of 20. If we can prevent people below those ages from taking up smoking, there will be a huge reduction in lifelong smokers. We have seen a concerning increase in the use of vapes over the last decade. Although vaping can be an effective tool to help smokers quit smoking, given that it is less harmful than smoking tobacco, it is associated with some short-term effects, including headaches, coughs and nausea, and the long-term effects are not yet known in detail. Disposable vapes are a concern not just because of the aforementioned health risks but because of their low prices and appealing packaging and flavours, which appear to be directly marketed at young people. Vaping products that contain nicotine are highly addictive and will create lifelong vapers, so the Bill's provisions to restrict the sale of vapes will, hopefully, reduce the attraction and the sale of vapes to young people. I echo the Chair of the Health Committee's comments in thanking the Youth Assembly Members for their engagement with the Committee on the issue. I found their opinions and life experience very informative and useful to us. Like other Members, I look forward to working with them further. The Bill offers an ambitious opportunity to create a smoke-free generation across the UK and in Northern Ireland, and we must do what we can to deliver that. As other Members have mentioned, the Bill is not perfect. There are procedural issues that need to be resolved over how it will work in the long term, including how the proof of age will be required in subsequent decades, as people born after 2009 move into middle age and beyond, and, more locally, how councils can be supported around enforcement with respect to vapes. As a liberal party, we need to balance the competing rights and obligations in society and are not convinced that bans are always the answer, but it should be said that the Bill is not intended to ban smoking for anyone who can smoke today. Instead, the intention is to prevent anyone born in or after 2009 from ever being able to smoke. If it succeeds, it will fundamentally change our society for the better, preventing suffering from lots of smoking-related diseases that have been mentioned, saving thousands of lives and removing many of the associated pressures and costs to our health service. As a former smoker, I am familiar with how hard it is to quit smoking. As a nurse, on many occasions, I have seen people with smoking-related conditions that have had a huge impact on the quality and length of their life. For those reasons, I am content to support the LCM, but I encourage the Minister to continue his engagement with UK Government colleagues to ensure that the Bill delivers as intended and, most importantly, is concluded before the end of the parliamentary term, which approaches quickly.
601 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.02 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.92).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.92 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.02 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.56 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.36 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.05 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.02 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.01 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:31 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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