Baroness Walmsley (LD)

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Russell’s Amendment 146. It seems to me both sensible and essential to set the groundwork, as he put it, for further work on defining vape flavours—keeping in mind at all times the Government’s intention, which we support: to allow vapes as an effective, proven tool in quitting smoking tobacco while at the same time addressing the egregious activities of the tobacco industry vis-à-vis young people. It has used colours, flavours, images, packaging and marketing to encourage young people who have never smoked to take up vaping. We know that, once hooked on the nicotine in these products, it will be very difficult for these young people to wean themselves off them when they want to. We also know that evidence of real and lasting harm will continue to emerge over the next few years, and that is why the work to define flavours is so important and why I support this probing amendment. I am one of those nerdy people who, when they go shopping at the supermarket, takes a little magnifying glass with them. I strongly suspect that the “banana ice” vape of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the “mango ice” vape of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, have never been within five miles of a banana or a mango, and that anything called “raspberry fizz” will never have been within five miles of a raspberry. These things are put together. They do not contain any raspberry, mango or banana; instead, they contain a whole mix of chemicals. It might be more honest to label them with, “This vape tastes a bit like banana, but it contains the following 15 chemicals”, but you cannot do that, can you? Hence the Government’s problem. As with the other amendments in this group, Amendment 142 would open the way for the Government to include big-puff vapes and other technical measures in regulation—perhaps things such as age-gating at some future point—but it would not mandate them to do so. So, I would certainly not oppose it, although the Minister might tell us that the Government can do all this without the amendment. Amendment 144 could inadvertently restrict the Government’s opportunity to limit the number of flavours. I would not want to do that, so I do not support this amendment, but I would like to see the Government allow a reasonable range of flavours to help people who use vapes or who are quitting smoking, for the very reason indicated by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox: smokers like the fruity flavours, which certainly help them. That would be a very good thing. I really do think that allowing only a tobacco flavour would be a bad idea, because tobacco is the very thing that smokers want to get away from. I very much look forward to the Government’s response, particularly to my noble friend’s amendment.