Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Written Evidence Submitted by Campaign for Children’s Lung Health (CCLH) to the Tobacco and Vapes Public Bill Committee (TVB6 4 ).

Thank you for the opportunity to provide evidence to the Committee.  We are a group of senior and retired UK Respiratory Paediatric Consultants and Nurses who have formed ourselves into the CCLH – the Campaign for Children’s Lung Health. Please find below this submission our manifesto agreed in March 2024. After a lifetime of providing healthcare to children and young people (CYP), we are giving evidence based entirely on what we believe would be in the interests of CYP rather than about adults and smoking issues generally.

We have read the evidence given to the Committee on January 7th and agree with much of it but wanted to pick out three topics we believe are of the utmost importance. These are:

· The need for effective enforcement

· The need for coordination between differing bodies

· The need for more research into the harmful effects of vaping on children

Taking these in turn – the need for enforcement is paramount as vapes are already banned for sale to CYP under18.  If there was proper enforcement now, the number of CYP vaping would not be increasing at the current rapid rate. From internal discussions our belief is the numbers of CYP vaping is up to 30% in some areas of the UK. The lack of national information from National Trading Standards hampers our ability to make a case built on statistics.  There is a figure given of 60-70,000 outlets selling vapes.  But this does not cover the entirety of the UK, only England we believe. There are no national figures for the number of prosecutions of shop owners or sales people .  As was given in evidence by Lord Bischard , the numbers of Trading Standards officers have declined considerably and there is an urgent need for both recruitment and training of officers in this type of enforcement.  It is also interesting that the attitude to enforcement is to advise first and to prosecute only reluctantly as it is difficult and expensive!   Perhaps if this attitude had been different with more enforcement, then the growth in vaping in CYP would not have been so high.

 We agree that the fines should be £200 rather than £100 and would recommend that the fines are given immediately an offence has taken place and that this is then widely advertised  locally to act as a deterrent to others in the neighbourhood.

 We would recommend that a lead local authority is appointed for each region, to cover the need to gather data and to coordinate the activities of Trading Standards.  Further to this, we would recommend that the National Trading Standards Board is given the role of ensuring the coordination and collection of data on offences which are collected and published regularly.

 Our second topic is that of coordination into which we have strayed in the paragraph above.  At present there does not appear to be sufficient coordination between local authorities, National Trading Standards, the Police, the Schools in each area, the medical profession, the parents and the children themselves.  It would seem to us that if we want to tackle this problem for CYP head on then some route for all those organisations to coordinate their activities together would be very helpful.  It would provide a route to ensure that information is properly exchanged and gathered.  It must be very frustrating for people wanting to report incidences where CYP have been seen to be using vapes or had been able to purchase from a shop, yet it is unclear how to report the issue.  Clear paths to enable reporting should be established and publicised. The Local Government Association has excellent communications with local authorities so LGA could be empowered to determine the number of vaping and smoking outlets to be offered a licence in each area. 

Our third main topic on the lack of research on vaping and its effect on the human body is one that has been made by several of your witnesses.  We are extremely concerned we are following the same poor example of endorsement of a product (vapes for smoking cessation) that was followed when smoking tobacco was first introduced.  We believe a number of our adult chest physician colleagues wish to retain some flavours and colourings of disposable vapes to attract adults to vaping as a method of quitting smoking. This could be disastrous for CYP enabling them to continue obtaining those products and CCLH would firmly oppose such suggestions. In the 1950s when it was first discovered that smoking tobacco significantly impaired health, the Department of Health and the medical profession took many years to act on that information.  Extensive research is needed now on the effects nicotine addiction has on the long-term health of both adults and CYP.  We already know that the acute health issues are greater with vapes than they were with smoking tobacco. Isn’t it likely to be similarly true about the long-term health issues?

 At present little evidence about future health is being gathered in CYP despite large numbers of them now vaping regularly.  We recommend this takes place and covers not only the impact of vaping in CYP on their respiratory health but also the effect nicotine has on other organs including the heart, brain, blood vessels, the skin, teeth and gums. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man and there is increasing evidence it may be responsible in a similar way to coal tar in the development of cancerous change in bodily cells. Surely, we should be discovering as much as we can about the very real threats of nicotine addiction in CYP and the possible cellular changes that nicotine may produce in their growing bodies. Obviously similar research needs undertaking in adults as well

 As there is no coordination between the statistics of the health impacts between different disciplines, we propose that long term longitudinal research is started on the overall impact on CYP’s health including the impact on teeth and gums and also on the skin as vaping seems to mirror the impact of tobacco. It could also be that publicising information about the impact on teeth and skin might act as a deterrent to young people making vaping less "cool".

 Other more general points we would like to make:

 We support the bill and its contents and would like to see clear regulations attached to it which can be monitored over future years to see how effective it is.

 We believe the issue of marketing and packaging is crucial and that this should cover displays on the pavements outside shops in addition to those inside the premises.

 We believe that Australia is providing a good example of how to tackle this issue and lessons could be learned from the Australian experience.

The equivalent to smoking cessation services for adults should be provided for children to help them give up vaping.

January 2025.