Contribution
My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 144 in this group. Before I do so, I express my support for the argument made so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister on behalf of my noble friend Lord Mott. The amendments in this group should be relatively uncontroversial because we are all, I think, pushing in the same direction, and one of the key features of where we are going is the protection of children, on which we are all united.
My amendment relates to an area where the Government have misfired slightly in drafting the Bill. They seek to regulate the flavours of vapes. There is a most intriguing further amendment in this group, in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, which seeks to tease out what the Government mean by the “flavour” of a vape. Both he and I are trying, I think, to come at the question of flavour as distinct from the description applied to that flavour. My amendment would substitute the word “descriptors” for the word “flavour”.
I speak as a vaper. I have vaped—not smoked—vapes that are described on the packet as “blueberry ice”, “mango ice”, and things of that sort. I can say immediately from my experience that none of them tastes like what they say. I can assure the Committee that the vape called “mango ice” does not bear any resemblance to anything that you could describe as a mango, and very much the same can be said of blueberries and so forth. I like eating blueberries—they are very good if you keep them in the fridge—so I know what they taste like. I like mangoes as well, but they do not taste like these vapes.
I think it fair to say that what we really want to control is the description applied. I will take this in two parts: first in relation to children and then in relation to adults. It is obviously the case that a descriptor can be applied to a vape that is designed to induce—if not seduce—a child to smoke a vape. If I saw something on the shelf described as “bubblegum mango”—I am not a marketing man, so I may not have chosen the best example—I would think that that descriptor was designed to appeal to a child. The Government should be able to regulate the descriptor on those vapes so as to eliminate descriptions which are designed to—or may inadvertently—appeal to a child. But that is not the power taken in this clause; it is a power to regulate the flavour, which, as I say, is both subjective and often at some distance from the descriptor that is applied.
The Minister may say, “I take your point on that, but I still want the power to regulate flavours because I am thinking now about adults”. Adults can, of course, see past descriptors. Most adults are not likely to find much appeal in something describing itself as bubblegum ice, bubblegum mango or whatever; none the less, there might be flavours that adults who do not like the taste of tobacco are seduced by, in the same way as menthol cigarettes were used to appeal to adults who did not like tobacco, and so on. I can see that.
However, it is also important to remember that vapes are a very important smoking cessation tool. It is clear from evidence from the industry that having a range of different flavours available makes them attractive to adults—not in a way that seduces them into wickedness, but that makes it easier for them to use vapes to give up smoking. I am trying to be helpful, and I am sure that the noble Earl is seeking to be helpful as well. We both agree on the protection of children, but we think that the Government have—rather lazily, perhaps—aimed at the wrong thing here with regard to flavours. It is about the marketing. It is the descriptor, rather than the flavour, at which the Government should be aiming.
I hope the Minister will accept my amendment in the spirit in which it is intended: that of being helpful. I also hope that she will agree to look more closely at this matter and perhaps come back with a more subtle and nuanced amendment on Report.