Save vaping

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is now law and there is worse to come

As you have probably heard, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will very soon be the Tobacco and Vapes Act. Its flagship policy is the truly idiotic generational smoking ban. I expect that journalists are already looking for people born on 1 January 2009 so that they can interview them on New Year’s Day. The retail trade is working on a “Decline09” campaign to remind shopkeepers of what to look for on customers’ ID and how to handle objections.

But, as I have been saying all along, the generational ban is little more than a silly, virtue-signalling gimmick. There is an even greater problem lurking in all the new powers that Wes Streeting has granted himself…

It is the vapes part of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill that is the real problem. It gives the health secretary, currently Wes Streeting, Henry VIII powers to do whatever he likes with vaping. The government is already consulting on banning vaping everywhere that smoking is banned, despite there being no plausible heath risks from second-hand vapour. It has made it clear that it intends to ban all advertising for vapes and nicotine pouches. It has even suggested that it will ban some or all e-cigarette flavours, a backdoor route to prohibition, which Michael Bloomberg’s army of lobby groups has been campaigning for worldwide. A vape tax that will double or treble the cost of vaping is already due to be introduced in October.

Taken together, this represents the most comprehensive package of pro-smoking policies ever introduced in this country. In the name of preventing minors – who cannot legally buy e-cigarettes – from taking up vaping, the government is putting every obstacle in the way of adults who might otherwise be tempted to use the most effective stop-smoking devices ever invented. It is doing all this while cigarettes with no health warnings on the pack are being sold for a few quid on the high street and has tied a bow on it by passing a law that will give smoking the allure of forbidden fruit for young adults.

The looming crackdown on vaping is a threat to both liberty and public health. The new vape tax - another Rishi Sunak policy - will create a major disincentive for smokers to switch when it comes into effect in October, but there is more trouble on its way.

The government didn’t even wait for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill to become law before launching a public consultation on banning vaping everywhere that smoking is currently banned.

As I wrote at the time, there seems to have been a deliberate attempt to confuse the public about what is being planned. I was on a BBC radio station yesterday and the presenter wrongly believed that the ban would only be in cars carrying kids. In my experience, even most vapers don’t know what is about to hit them. Yes, yes, I know that many pubs already ban vaping, but that should be a choice for them. As the Hippodrome’s proprietor Simon Thomas says, there is a big difference between enforcing your own policy at your own discretion and being compelled, on pain of a £2,500 fine, to stop anyone ever stealth vaping on your premises.

And it’s not just pubs, but every workplace in the land, even if no one else is in the room.

There is no scientific justification for this because “secondhand vapour” is not dangerous. There is no economic justification for it because there is no market failure. And there is no ethical justification for it because, as Clive Bates, the former director of Action on Smoking and Health, says, the basis of liberalism is that people should be left alone unless they are causing harm to others.

The fine people at the New Nicotine Alliance have been running a campaign against the ban called Save Vaping. Unfortunately, they are as impecunious as the proverbial church mouse and the issue is flying under the radar in the media. Nevertheless, they have found a growing number of people willing to speak out against the ban, including politicians from both sides of the House.

The government wants to slip this through on the quiet via secondary legislation. Don’t let it. You can submit a response to the consultation here or via the Save Vaping website. It won’t take long as it’s mostly a bunch of yes/no questions. The government doesn’t have to abide by the views of the majority of respondents, but if there is a lot of opposition to the proposals at the consultation stage, it makes it harder for them to proceed and easier to backtrack. I don’t sense a lot of enthusiasm for a ban, even from ‘public health’ groups that are usually trigger happy with prohibition. Please get involved (unless you support the ban, in which case forget I mentioned it).