Jenny Riddell-Carpenter

I welcome the amendments to the Bill. This is now a strengthened piece of legislation that will create the first smokefree generation. The chronic health issues that stem from smoking and their impact on our NHS are well known. The Bill, the amendments and what they will go on to achieve will be critical in supporting the NHS and improving health outcomes. Smoking costs the economy and wider society more than £20 billion a year, including a cost of £3 billion to the NHS and social care. That is equivalent to the annual salary of almost 700,000 nurses or 500,000 GPs, and is the cost of more than 500 million GP appointments. While the Bill will create the first smokefree generation, the Government recognise that we need to do more to help people quit smoking. That is why I was so glad to welcome the additional funding announced in December to support local authority-led stop smoking services. Suffolk was allocated an additional £900,000 for this year, which means that people in Suffolk Coastal will be able to access support and live healthier, smokefree lives. I know from personal experience just how hard that is. On the very day of the Bill’s Second Reading in November, I gave up smoking, because I had just voted on a Bill that would mean that my nieces and nephews would never legally be able to smoke. I have tried to give up smoking before—the last time was just before the general election, when in truth I never stood a chance of succeeding—but I was able to succeed this time only because I have moved to vapes. To quote something that has already been said, “If you smoke, vape; if you don’t smoke, don’t vape.” It is simple and true. I spoke on Second Reading about the important role that the Bill will play in preventing young people from taking up vaping. The dramatic rise in children taking up vaping should be nationally recognised as one of the most concerning crises facing young people and children. The Bill will make it harder for young people to be drawn into vaping and will bring the law on vape advertising in line with that for tobacco advertising: there will be a total ban on vape advertising and sponsorship. There will also be a consultation on the vape flavours that we all know are far too appealing to children. However, we need to do more. As I stand here delivering this contribution, new products are appearing on the market that seek to exploit the loopholes in the upcoming ban on single-use vapes. I understand that the Bill explicitly gives the Secretary of State power to regulate further to limit the size of vapes, and to ban the so-called big puff vapes, which provide more than 600 puffs per pod. Since Second Reading, we have seen products come on to the market that allow people to attach refillable 10 ml pods, creating, in effect, a 3,000-puff vape. That is not a big puff vape; it is a colossal puff vape.