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Sixth Report Contents

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Instruments drawn to the special attention of the House

Draft Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (England) Regulations 2024

Date laid: 23 October 2024

Parliamentary procedure: affirmative

These draft Regulations propose a ban on single-use vapes from 1 June 2025. The legislation is being brought forward on environmental grounds but there is also a public health aspect, as single-use vapes are considered to have played a significant role in the rise of youth vaping. We received a submission from Green Alliance which, whilst supportive of the ban, raised questions about its implementation timeline and enforcement.

The draft Regulations are drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that they are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.

What this instrument does

1.These draft Regulations propose a definition of single-use or disposable vapes and would make it illegal for people to supply such vapes. The ban would take effect from 1 June 2025 to give businesses sufficient time to prepare and run down stocks.

2.The draft Regulations define a single-use vape as follows:

• a vape that is not designed or intended to be re-used;
• for a vape to be considered re-usable it must be both rechargeable and refillable;
• a vape is not considered rechargeable if it is designed to contain a battery that cannot be recharged or if it has a coil1 that cannot be easily replaced; and
• a vape is considered refillable if it has a single-use container that can be purchased separately and replaced, for example through pre-filled pods, or the container can be refilled.

3.To support enforcement of the ban, the instrument proposes new offences, starting with stop notices, fixed penalty fines or compliance notices, or enforcement undertakings. Failure to comply with enforcement undertakings could lead to criminal proceedings being brought against an individual.

4.We note that while this instrument applies in England only, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says that the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Executive have confirmed that they will also ban single-use vapes.

Policy rationale

5.The Department states that the aim of the ban is to reduce the number of vapes being disposed of incorrectly. According to Defra, the use of single-use vapes has increased substantially in recent years. It is estimated that over 360 million single-use vapes were placed on the market in the UK in 2023 and that over five million single-use vapes are either littered or thrown away in general waste every week in the UK.

6.Defra says that there is growing concern about the environmental impacts, as single-use vapes: are an inefficient use of critical resources, such as lithium and copper; are difficult to recycle; and frequently end up as polluting litter or in residual waste where they can cause fires.2 The Department explains that the ban is part of the Government’s commitment to reducing waste through developing a circular economy in which there is a shift from single-use items to alternative reusable items and disposal as a last resort. According to Defra, this ban aligns with others on single-use plastic items that have been introduced over the last few years, such as the ban on microbeads in personal care products and restrictions on single-use plastic straws and plastic stemmed cotton buds.

7.We asked how easy it would be for manufacturers to circumvent the ban, for example by using basic refillable and reusable vapes which can be sold at a price cheap enough for users to treat them as disposable, and whether the Department would monitor market developments. Defra responded:

“Any vapes sold will have to meet the definition outlined in the legislation; this means they must be rechargeable, refillable, and have a coil that can be replaced (either separately or as part of a pod). Refill pods and replaceable coils must all be separately available and should be able to be replaced by the average user.

Currently, to supply nicotine-containing vapes (and refill containers) on the UK market, businesses must first notify their products to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). We will work closely with MHRA to understand the type of products that are being notified to ensure that we are aware of any market developments.

As part of our legislation a post implementation review will be undertaken, three years after the implementation of the ban.

Alongside this we will work to communicate the ban effectively to retailers, including the rationale behind the ban to discourage businesses from supplying these types of products.”

Public health implications

8.While the Impact Assessment that has been provided alongside the instrument considers the public health impact of vaping and of the proposed ban, the Explanatory Memorandum (EM) to the draft Regulations does not cover this aspect. Asked about this, Defra explained:

“The legislation that we are introducing uses powers under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the legislation is being brought forward on environmental grounds. Therefore, the focus of the EM addresses the environmental protection elements as opposed to public health issues.

However, the ban on single use vapes received strong support as a way of reducing numbers of youth vaping and addressing public health concerns related to this issue. Single use vapes are playing a significant role in the rise of youth vaping, with 54% of current vapers aged 11- to 17-years old in Great Britain using them, increasing from 7.7% in 2021. During the Smoke-free Generation consultation held in October 2023, 69% of respondents were in support of a single use vape ban to help address this rising issue.”

9.Asked about the Government’s plans to address wider concerns about vaping, including that young people and children in particular are being targeted through certain flavours and brightly coloured vapes and packaging, Defra responded:

“The Department of Health and Social Care’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill will be the biggest public health intervention in a generation–creating the first smoke-free generation, gradually ending the sale of tobacco products across the country and banning vapes from being deliberately promoted and advertised to children.

The Bill will crack down on youth vaping by banning vapes from being deliberately branded and advertised to children. We will do this by taking regulation-making powers to restrict flavours, regulating vape displays and packaging of all types of vapes, as well as other nicotine products.

These measures, along with others in the Bill, will help stop the next generation from becoming hooked on nicotine.”

Issues raised in an external submission

10.We received a submission from Green Alliance which, whilst “strongly” supporting the principle of the proposed ban, questioned its implementation period in the context of a “doubling of disposable vapes usage in the space of just a year” and asked whether the ban could be brought forward. Defra responded:

“The coming into force date is specified in the published regulations and cannot be expedited at this point. While it is important to bring in this ban as quickly as possible the June 2025 date allows alignment between all UK nations meaning that clear guidance can be put in place for retailers and regulators, as well as removing any risks relating to internal market challenges.

Our international obligations also mean that we need to provide an implementation period to allow businesses to prepare for the changes and sell through their existing stock. Ensuring that there is a 6 month period between the making of the regulations and their coming into force allows us to not only meet these obligations but provides an opportunity to provide strong communications to businesses about the changes.”

11.We are reassured by Defra’s explanation of the timetable for the ban, in particular, that the time until June 2025 will be used to align arrangements across the UK and to put clear guidance and communications in place for retailers and regulators.

12.Green Alliance also questioned whether there was sufficient funding to enable effective enforcement by local trading standards officers and whether a hotline for traders to report transgressions had been considered to help boost compliance outcomes. The Department replied:

“We are discussing with Trading Standards and other enforcing agencies how we can best support them to enforce underage and illicit tobacco and vapes sales. This includes considering how best to ensure that intelligence around illicit activity can be monitored and shared.”

13.We have published the submission and Defra’s response in full on our website.3

Draft Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024

Date laid: 23 October 2024

Parliamentary procedure: affirmative

The purpose of these draft Regulations is to introduce the Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging scheme under which the costs of managing household packaging waste are shifted from taxpayers and local authorities to UK businesses which use and supply the packaging, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle. Such a scheme was first consulted on in 2019 but its launch was postponed in July 2023. The aim is to reduce the impact of packaging on the environment and encourage businesses to use less packaging and packaging that is easier to recycle or reuse, thereby supporting the move to a circular economy. We received submissions from Green Alliance and Wildlife and Countryside Link which, whilst supportive of the scheme, raised a number of questions about its operation and enforcement.

The draft Regulations are drawn to the special attention of the House on the ground that they are politically or legally important and give rise to issues of public policy likely to be of interest to the House.

14.These draft Regulations propose the introduction of the Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR) scheme (“the scheme”) under which UK businesses (referred to as “producers”) will have to pay the costs of dealing with household packaging waste and provide information about its disposal. The scheme will shift the costs of managing the packaging waste from taxpayers and local authorities to UK businesses which use and supply the packaging, in line with the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

15.The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimates the total cost of the scheme for producers to be £11.1 billion over a ten-year period. Such a scheme was first consulted on in 20194 but its introduction was postponed in 2023 for economic reasons.5 The scheme will operate UK wide and will be regulated and enforced by the Environment Agency in England, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales. Defra says that where the draft Regulations impact on devolved matters, consent has been obtained from the Scottish and Welsh Governments and the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

Policy rationale

16.The Department explains that a system of packaging producer responsibility has been in place in the UK since 1997, and that under the current arrangements, businesses report on the packaging they put on the market and are required to meet a share of the annual UK target for recycling packaging waste. Defra says that while this system contributed to the UK packaging waste recycling rate increasing from 25% in the late 1990s to 64.9% in 2023, it did not incentivise producers to use less packaging or packaging which is easily recycled. Nor did the scheme recover all costs associated with the management of packaging waste. The new scheme seeks to reduce the impact of packaging on the environment and encourage businesses to use less packaging and packaging that is easier to recycle or reuse, thereby supporting the move to a circular economy in which there is a shift from single-use items to alternative reusable items and disposal as a last resort.

How the scheme will operate

17.Under the scheme, businesses will be responsible for the environmental impact of the materials and products they place on the market and for the costs of managing household packaging. Obligations in relation to a single item of packaging will fall to a single producer, typically the business that makes the packaging available for the first time on the UK market. Producers will pay disposal fees and payments will be made to local authorities from the 2025/26 financial year onwards.

18.The scheme will also require businesses to ensure that a proportion of the packaging they supply is recycled from 2025 onwards and to provide evidence of this recycling. The scheme will cover all packaging material, categorised into different material groups, such as steel, aluminium, paper and card, glass, plastic and wood. The scheme will retain the recycling targets that have been set under the current system for each packaging material for each calendar year until 2030. These targets aim to achieve an overall UK packaging recycling rate of 75% by 2030.

19.Large producers with an annual turnover of more than £2 million and supplying more than 50 tonnes of packaging will be required to: report their packaging data annually; pay disposal cost fees for any household packaging they supply; and meet recycling obligations on all the packaging they supply. The fees will be based on the costs incurred by local authorities in collecting and managing the packaging waste. The amount of fee each producer pays will depend on factors such as how much packaging they supply, the type of materials they supply and if the packaging is recyclable or not. Producers which do not meet the large producer thresholds but have an annual turnover of more than £1 million and supply more than 25 tonnes of packaging will not have to pay disposal cost fees but will still have to report their total tonnes of packaging supplied annually. This is to obtain a more complete picture of the packaging placed on the UK market.

20.A Scheme Administrator will be appointed jointly by Defra and the devolved Governments. Amongst other responsibilities, it will assess local authorities’ costs of managing household packaging waste, calculate producers’ disposal cost fees and make the payments to local authorities. From 2026, the disposal cost fees for large producers may be reduced where a producer’s packaging is more environmentally sustainable, for example where the producer can demonstrate that they have collected and recycled packaging waste that is not usually collected by local authorities for recycling. The Scheme Administrator will also have a wider role in incentivising the use of more environmentally sustainable packaging, the prevention of and reduction in packaging waste and the re-use of packaging.

Issues raised in external submissions

21.We received submissions from Green Alliance and Wildlife and Countryside Link which, whilst “strongly supportive” of the scheme, raised a number of questions about its practical operation. Green Alliance asked, for example, how the scheme would deliver a reduction in packaging waste and an increase in reuse of packaging without quantifiable targets. The Department responded that the instrument:

“[ … ] provides a broad remit for the Scheme Administrator to modulate producer fees to account for a range of factors beyond the recyclability of the packaging, including reuse and reduction. This provides a flexible policy lever to drive the desired environmental outcomes in Schedule 7, 2. (c), (e) & (f).

As pEPR producer fees are charged according to the weight of packaging a producer supplies, this incentivises obligated businesses to reduce the amount of packaging they use as a means to lower their fees.

Under the regulations the use of reusable packaging is also incentivised through two other mechanisms. Through the scheme producers will only be required to report and pay disposal cost fees for household packaging the first time it is placed on the market. Additionally, at the end of life reusable/refillable household packaging can be offset against household disposal cost fees if it is collected from consumers and sent for recycling by the producer.”

22.Green Alliance also questioned whether sufficient resources would be made available to monitor and enforce the scheme. The Department replied:

“As is currently the case, the monitoring and enforcement activity for producer responsibility regime by the regulators will be funded by the associated charges in the Regulations, for example for registration and accreditation. The charges operate on a cost-recovery basis. Charges in the Regulations have been increased from the 2007 Regulations [which underpin the current system and fees] to reflect the new duties placed on the regulators and the increased level of monitoring and audit activities.”

23.The submission by Wildlife and Countryside Link asked what evidence would be required from producers to prove that any packaging waste they had collected had been recycled in order to justify a reduction in their disposal cost fee from 2026. Defra replied:

“In relation to the requirement for producers to evidence that relevant packaging waste has been recycled (Regulation 34(3)), the Environment Agency would not usually stipulate specific documents but would provide examples and principles acknowledging every producer is different therefore may have access to different evidence. A producer could obtain written confirmation from their reprocessor outlining what % of the materials that were collected and sent for recycling was actually recycled; this would need to outline the reprocessor’s method of determining this value and we could expect the producer to have a documented process in place for validating this data.”

24.We have published the submissions and Defra’s response to the issues raised in full on our website.6

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