THE Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a likelihood to “love our neighbours and seek their good”, the Bishop of Oxford, Dr Steven Croft, has said within the House of Lords.
The Bill, which was receiving its Second Reading, on Wednesday, is meant to make steps towards making a “smoke-free generation” within the UK by 2030. If passed, it will make selling tobacco to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 illegal, effectively raising the legal age for purchasers annually until the sale of tobacco was banned. The Bill would also ban the promoting and sponsorship of all vapes and other nicotine products.
Speaking on the smoke-free-generation element of the Bill, Dr Croft said that it was “controversial for some since it is about selection. . . It recognises that our selections are made not in a vacuum but with consequences for others. . . Indeed, what’s profoundly Christian is that this will be on the expense of ourselves and our own selections and preferences.”
Responding to the criticisms of vaping, Baroness Fox of Buckley (non-affiliated) told peers that she was “stocking up” on single-use vapes before the ban in June. “The ministerial power grab within the Tobacco and Vapes Bill signifies that democratic accountability might be going up in smoke,” she said.
“Once the proud winner of the Smoker of the Year award, I quit smoking 18 months ago after 40 years of chain smoking. It was tough, but, advised by at least two doctors, I attempted disposable vapes.”
Lady Buckley, who’s keen on banana- and strawberry-flavoured vapes, which “worked a treat” when she stopped smoking cigarettes, questioned why “the Government [is] so fixated on demonising flavoured vapes?
“Does the Minister really imagine that only children like sweet things? . . . Research shows that 65 per cent of adult vapers find fruit and sweet liquids preferable —paradoxically, often due to perceived difference to the tobacco they’re quitting.”
She continued: “Now, I’m smoke-free. But, fairly than patting me on the back, along comes DEFRA, which, with scant regard for public health, has prioritised the environment. I now live in dread of 1 June and an outright ban, and I’m stocking up.”
Speaking in support of the Bill, Dr Croft said: “Stark inequalities in health remain one of the vital persistent and negative health outcomes of contemporary times. Smoking falls clearly along this line of inequality. . .
“The Government have already committed to being smoke-free by 2030, and, although probably the most well-off parts of the country could also be on the right track for that, Cancer Research UK reports, because the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, has said, that probably the most deprived areas are usually not more likely to meet that focus on until 2050 at current rates.”
Lord Crisp (crossbench) said: “I recognise the purpose made by the Minister and others that vapes might help people surrender smoking, and that almost all public-health specialists assess them as significantly safer than smoking.
“However, because the Chief Medical Officer has said, it’s a really low bar for vapes to be safer than smoking. His advice, which I believe one has to follow, is “If you smoke, vaping is way safer; when you don’t smoke, don’t vape.” It is utterly unacceptable to market vapes to children.”
Baroness Merron (Labour), who moved the Bill, said in her concluding speech: “I’m grateful for the challenge. I even have heard many concerns being expressed today, together with outright opposition to the Bill. I even have also heard much support for the Bill, although there are rightly questions on the measures in it.
“However, allow us to do not forget that the harms of smoking extend beyond the person. They impact on non-smokers, especially children and pregnant women, through secondhand smoke. This policy can be probably the most significant public-health measure in a generation. It will construct on the previous steps I spoke of, similar to the 2007 indoor-smoking ban, with the goal of safeguarding the health of future generations from preventable and serious harm. That is why we’re bringing the Bill forward.”
