The Tobacco and Vapes Bill had its first reading on the 5^{th of} November 2024, in the House of Commons. The second reading of the bill was held on the 26^th of November 2024. The Public Bill Committee is now seeking written evidence in order to aid scrutiny of the Bil, the deadline for this is the 30^th of January, so we advise all who are able and interested, to try to send in written evidence a week before on the 21^st of January. For more information on the bill, you can read the following explanatory notes from the House of Commons.

We have a vested interest in the Bill from, in particular, a perspective of both enforcement, impact on young people and safety concerns. The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, as articulated on the parliament website, is designed to:

• create a smoke-free generation, gradually ending the sale of tobacco products across the country and breaking the cycle of addiction and disadvantage.
• strengthen the existing powers to ban smoking in public places to reduce harms of passive smoking, particularly around children and vulnerable people.
• ban vapes and nicotine products from being deliberately branded, promoted, and advertised to children to stop the next generation from becoming hooked on nicotine.
• provide powers to introduce a licensing scheme for the retail sale of tobacco, vapes and nicotine products, extend the retail registration scheme in Scotland, and strengthen enforcement activity to support the implementation of the above measures.

What are we interested in?

We are interested in the impacts of young people turning to smoking, particularly in supported accommodation and the subsequent communal areas.

Safety is also a key interest, in March 2016 it was reported there were 113 fires caused by e-cigarettes in three years, and data shows that there have been over 16,000 smoking related fires over the same period.^[1]

We are also interested in hearing as to the impacts of enforcement, particularly for local authorities, whether fixed penalty notices are effective, and to what extent. What burden licensing will have on local authorities.

Of course, perceptions are important with ASB, and so we are interested to see how members have dealt with complaints and reports of misuse of tobacco and vape products.

It is important to stress that all evidence and perspectives are wanted; your expertise could be instrumental in having policymakers scrutinise this piece of legislation.

We are therefore seeking members expertise and evidence so we can submit our response as the Public Bill Committee continues to scrutinise the legislation.

All requests for written evidence, general questions, or if a structured form is needed, can be sent to:

Harrison Box, Policy Officer

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

^[1] https://nfcc.org.uk/our-services/position-statements/smoking-vaping-tobacco-position-statement/