Disposable vapes to be banned in Britain in bid to protect children’s health

Transcript

00:00 How is it going to work and when is it going to come into force?

00:04 So the bill itself will be brought forward very shortly and that will take a bit of time

00:09 as you know with legislation through both houses of parliament but we are confident

00:13 we will have it passed by the time of the general election.

00:16 In terms of the smoking ban itself, that will come into force on the 1st of January 2027.

00:23 What that means is that a 15 year old or younger child today will never be able to buy a cigarette

00:29 legally from a shop and in terms of disposable vapes and the other restrictions that we are

00:34 looking to place on vapes, those will come into force probably we think early next year

00:40 because what we have to do is get through various statutory instruments and consultations

00:44 and so on so it will be next year that we are looking for that to be implemented in

00:48 high streets up and down the country.

00:50 So what would happen to a 15 year old after that who was found with a disposable vape?

00:55 Well we have as part of the bill we are bringing in powers, what we want to do is to direct

01:01 the powers towards the vendors because I do not want children getting into trouble with

01:07 trading standards but what we will be doing is focusing as we already do on trading standard

01:13 enforcement provisions against shops and then we will also be able, trading standards will

01:18 be able to issue fixed penalty notices to people £100 fine on the spot because trading

01:25 standards have said to us that is what they need.

01:28 But the Independent British Vapour Trade Association has said that quite simply bans do not work,

01:34 you know many MPs, Conservative MPs would agree with that.

01:39 Well I think the evidence actually on smoking and the restrictions that we as a society

01:43 have placed on smoking over the years shows that is not correct.

01:47 So many years ago I am old enough to remember a time when you could walk into a pub and

01:52 it was filled with smoke and everybody at the time when that was being debated said

01:56 oh this will never work.

01:57 Nowadays of course you would be astonished if somebody tried to spark up a cigarette

02:02 in a pub or a public facility.

02:05 So too about a decade ago we had a big debate about smoking, adult smoking in cars in front

02:11 of their children because of the enclosed space of the car, people said it will never

02:15 work but again the evidence shows that simply is not correct.