Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)

My Lords, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, for helping to differentiate products and for having some precision in the way we discuss these issues. I have been concerned throughout about a one-size-fits-all approach. I do not think it helps anyone. It certainly does not help in relation to health, let alone retailers and so on, as has been described. Heated tobacco should not be conflated with vapes, but it should also not be conflated with smoking cigarettes or tobacco in that sense. As the noble Lord explained, heated tobacco products are heated, not combusted. That means that, although they might have some degree of harm, there is a body of evidence that shows that there is a huge reduction in harmful products from heating tobacco rather than smoking tobacco. This matters to me because a lot of people use heated tobacco as a smoking cessation tool, as a form of giving up smoking. When I have raised issues concerning the evidence on heated tobacco, I have been told that the problem with that evidence is that it is based on research produced by the tobacco industry rather than by independent researchers. I point out that, none the less, it is scientific evidence and can be tested as such, whoever pays for it. But if there is some concern about the evidence, I encourage the Government to consider how they can fund research into the very different types of product we are talking about, rather than simply dismissing any evidence they do not like the look of because of who funds it. We need to have a sense of proportion and should not treat all products the same. As I say, I therefore reject the one-size-fits-all approach. We will have much better legislation if these things are clarified on the face of the Bill and we all know what we are talking about, and do not just lump things under the single heading of “harmful and dangerous”.