Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy confirmed on Sky News that all disposable vapes will be banned from 1st June 2025. Thank Sunak for that idea…
Nandy said that the ban was being pursued to prevent the take-up of vaping in children. It’s already illegal for kids to buy vapes, the same goes for cigarettes…
She then went on about how they weren’t “pleasant“:
“Single use vapes in particular are causing a lot of problems for the environment. You know I walk through my local park and the council is very good job of dealing with it but you see them discarded all over the place and, um, it’s not pleasant at all for people to have to deal with. So for those reasons we’ve taken the decision to ban single use vapes from next year.”
Guido didn’t realise pleasantness was the metric by which the government decides if something should be outlawed or not. Even the British public isn’t behind Starmer on some of his extreme nannying policies…
Labour isn’t just confused on £28 billion and Gaza. Its frontbench seems to have no idea what to do about vaping. Less than two months ago Wes Streeting said that the party “was considering making e-cigarettes prescription-only“, then policy chieftain Jon Ashworth said “smoking cessation services have been cut quite deeply by the Conservatives” and he “wouldn’t go down that line“. Hot air from two heavy hitters…
Meanwhile, Labour whip Mary Glindon yesterday hosted a Parliamentary Roundtable “on a Retailer and Distributor Licensing Scheme for the Vaping Sector” which is a priority for vaping retailers trying to counter the government with rearguard action. Glindon has also been retweeting content from the UK Vaping Industry Association calling for a licensing scheme. Labour in the Lords is so hard-line it wants smoking and vaping banned on the street outside pubs. Consistency is nowhere to be seen, especially from the frontbench. What are Labour smoking…
Guido’s view on Rishi’s various smoking bans has been clear. Prohibition generally doesn’t work in practice…
Now, on top of his New Zealand-style smoking ban and crack down on vapes marketing and flavours, Rishi will be announcing further bans today: disposable vapes. In order to “protect children’s health“, our teetotal Prime Minister has decided that banning all disposable vapes, for adults as well, is a good legacy to leave behind. Another victory for the nanny-state…
Though the bans are likely to go through, friends of the free-market are not happy; we know how the free-market wonks felt about the ban when the plans started to gather steam. Disposable vapes are an inexpensive way for adult smokers to wean off cigarettes, as the Institute of Economic Affairs noted, the ban is a “pro-smoking policy“. According to WeVapeUK director Mark Oates, “This will lead 600,000 premature deaths due to the increase in smoking rates.” Noxious…
As well as restricting freedom, the bans are likely to to hit hard taxpayers’ wallet too, with the smoking ban alone expected to cost the government £9 billion a year. Those on the right of the party have also blasted the bans, with Liz Truss saying: “While the state has a duty to protect children from harm, in a free society, adults must be able to make their own choices about their own lives“. What have they been smoking…
You may have recently seen billboard or newspaper adverts calling for better regulation of the vaping industry, to help combat the levels of underage vaping and the sale of illegal vapes.
These are the work of British American Tobacco (BAT), the biggest vaping manufacturer based in the UK. As a FTSE 10 UK company, our call for the government to regulate the industry more strongly may be seen by some as counterintuitive.
However, a government consultation on the Tobacco and Vapes Bill closes today. To remain silent now, as the vaping industry reaches an inflection point, would be to squander this opportunity.
There is widespread consensus that vaping has encouraged millions of smokers to switch. Last year’s influential Cochrane Review of 78 studies, which examined 22,000 participants, found that that nicotine vapes led to higher levels of switching than traditional nicotine replacement therapies, such as patches and chewing gums.
But herein lies the salutary story of unintended consequences. A product that is providing an alternative for adult smokers now needs to be further safeguarded from those who are underage.
Let us be clear: children should not vape.
Yet there is considerable evidence to suggest that some of the ways vapes are being marketed (using dessert, sweet and soft drink flavour names, for example) and sold is helping drive underage experimentation that can lead to the take-up of vaping. All stakeholders in the industry must step up and play their part in reducing youth access.
And, with policies to shape the industry’s future being discussed in Whitehall, this is a chance to reframe what should be done.
Read the proposals below:
46% of smokers and 37% of ex-smokers have used vaping as a tool to kick cigarettes. Single-use or so-called disposable vapes, due to their ease of use, play a crucial role in the initial transition away from tobacco, with 51% of regular smokers and 61% of recent ex-smokers using such devices. Vaping has been transformational in stopping young people from starting smoking with the number of 18-year-olds who regularly smoke falling from 24.5% in 2021 to 19.5% in 2022, a reduction of 20% in one year.
13% of UK adults or around 6.4 million people smoke and the Government has a target to reduce that figure to 5% by 2030. Given the Government’s ambitions, you’d think now wouldn’t be the best time to impose significant restrictions on one of the best smoking cessation tools we have, and yet that’s where we find ourselves. In October, the Government announced a UK-wide consultation on potentially restricting certain types of vaping products and flavours that are vital to smokers’ quitting. The consultation, that closes on 6th December, also includes a potential tax on vapes, and the possibility of a ban on single use products.
We have no problem with proportionate regulation, and there is much in the Government’s proposals to be commended, but bans on single use vapes and arbitrary taxes will be counterproductive, boosting the illicit market (already estimated to be 30% of the total market) and pushing vapers back into smoking.
It is critical that the voice of the vaper is heard and is why for adults who vape, now is the time to respond to the government consultation that closes on 6th December.
This content created and presented by Marcus Saxton, Chairman of the Independent British Vape Trade Association.
Freedom-loving wonks are steaming at today’s news that the government is expected to ban disposable vapes, with think tanks across Westminster outraged at the “restriction of choices for millions”. As always, Guido brings you the low down on the reactions:
Unsurprisingly, The Adam Smith Institute finds this an unwelcome proposal, claiming that if the ban goes through, the government “can kiss goodbye to Smoke free 2030“. Maxwell Marlow, Director of Research said:
“The Department of Health repeatedly, and correctly, states that vaping is less harmful than smoking. The evidence is crystal clear that vaping is a vital public health tool which helps cigarette smokers kick their habit, and disposable vapes are part of this formula. It is already illegal to sell e-cigarettes to children, with very heavy fines levied on the criminals that do. Banning these vapes will have the opposite effect to the one the Department desires, fuelling the black market economy and making enforcement more difficult. Britons should be asking why we are being asked to endanger public health, simply because the Government has failed to enforce its own laws properly.”
Of course, the Institute of Economic Affairs doubts it will go down well when the smoke clears. Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics added:
“A ban on disposable vapes will restrict the choices of millions of adult smokers who could benefit from switching to them. E-cigarettes are life saving products that can only legally be sold to people over the age of 18. We do not ban cider because some teenagers drink it. We do not ban 18 certificate films because some teenagers watch them. We don’t ban cigarettes because some teenagers smoke them. If these reports are true, the government has mistaken legislating for governing. The answer to underage vaping is to enforce the laws that already exist. There is no reason why children should be able to buy e-cigarettes more easily than they can buy vodka.”
FOREST aren’t happy, calling it a “significant own goal” as it seems to be all smoke and mirrors from the government. Director, Simon Clark, said:
“If the Government’s aim is to reduce smoking rates, banning disposable vapes would be a significant own goal. Vaping has been a huge success story, with millions of smokers choosing to switch to a product that is far less risky to their health. Part of that success is due to disposable vapes which are convenient and easy to use. The answer to the problem of children vaping is not to ban a product many adults use to help them quit smoking, but to crack down on retailers who are breaking the law and selling e-cigarettes to anyone under 18.”
Not everyone is telling the government to stick the ban in their pipe and smoke it… the RSPCA took to Twitter/X to write:
“We’re pleased to see the news this morning that the Government is considering a ban on disposable vapes… We’ve been calling for this as they are environmentally damaging and pose a threat to wildlife and animals.”
Snowdon has hit the nail on the head: vaping is already outlawed for under-18s, so enforcing the law as it is would have solved the problem. Disposable vapes are an inexpensive way for adult smokers to wean off cigarettes. This is the typical government response of making an illegal act even more illegal. What have they been smoking…
