Examination of Witness

Tobacco and Vapes Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 2:52 pm ar 1 Mai 2024.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Mr David Lawson gave evidence.

Photo of Gordon Henderson Gordon Henderson Ceidwadwyr, Sittingbourne and Sheppey 3:24, 1 Mai 2024

We will now hear from David Lawson, director of Inter Scientific Ltd. We have until 3.45 pm for this session. Will the witness please introduce himself?

Mr Lawson:

Hello, my name is David Lawson. I am director of Inter Scientific. I am also director of another company called Ventus Medical, which sits on the other side of regulation in the development of pharmaceutically regulated nicotine-containing products.

Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill Shadow Minister (Primary Care and Public Health)

Q In 2023, your company identified shops selling vapes with illegal capacities and nicotine strengths. What have you found through some of your work?

Mr Lawson:

We looked at stores in Liverpool, Manchester and London. We did this with a few different media outlets—the BBC, Sky News and The Guardian. We found that you could buy illegal products quite easily on the market and that they were available in almost every store you go into. Some of those were post office stores that were selling those products, so there was no way for customers to determine which products would be legal or illegal.

We were able to expand on testing in relation to trading standards, and we found that around 77% of products that we tested exceeded the 2 ml limits in the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, which set the UK limit on volume. Some 33% of products contained more than 20 mg/ml of nicotine, so over the legal limit for nicotine, but 19% of products that were marketed as being nicotine-free contained nicotine, generally at the full maximum strength for the UK. Overall, 78% of products tested were deemed to be illegal in accordance with TRPR 2016.

Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill Shadow Minister (Primary Care and Public Health)

Q Were those vapes being marketed to children or to adults, or was it a mixture?

Mr Lawson:

I think it is quite easy to characterise the products. They are generally quite large in size. They normally have cartoon figures on them, such as Rick and Morty from Netflix. A lot of them are branded with cartoons like that— sometimes The Simpsons are used. Generally, they have flavours characterised by trademarked brands, such as Skittles. These are all prohibited under the tobacco and related products regulations as they resemble food products, but they also exceed tank volume and nicotine content, too.

Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill Shadow Minister (Primary Care and Public Health)

Q In your opinion, does the Bill do enough to address the sale of vapes with illegal capacities and nicotine strengths? Will it give Government the powers they need to address future trends in this area?

Mr Lawson:

From the products we have tested, 78% of those are already deemed illegal based on the tobacco and related products regulations, which are the current regulations in the UK, so enforcing those regulations more stringently would have removed most of the products that people are now using. Implementing new regulations on top of regulations that are not currently enforced may not be effective in reducing the number of those products being sold on the market.

Photo of Trudy Harrison Trudy Harrison Ceidwadwyr, Copeland

Q I am the very proud mum of four daughters, aged between 21 and 25. When I think back to them as teenagers, I do not think they would have found a unicorn, a cartoon character or a bubble gum flavour particularly trendy—when they were four or five, yes—so I do not buy the idea that teenagers are attracted to such things. I worry that whatever we manage to do to avoid cartoon characters or bubble gum flavours being prevalent just will not work. For example, cigarettes are still attracting many young people, which is why the Bill is needed. I think they taste absolutely revolting, but that is not putting children off. What are your thoughts on what needs to be done to prevent teenagers from finding vapes attractive?

Mr Lawson:

I am not sure we can ever prevent any youth getting access to vapes—that is an impossibility. Youth are known to engage in risky behaviours, so they will drink alcohol under age and engage in risk-taking behaviour. What we can do is limit the drivers that bring youth to using vape products, such as flavours that are appealing or cartoons they are familiar with. These are small factors that play into the overall picture as to why somebody may pick up a vape when they did not previously smoke. That needs to be balanced with the question of adults quitting smoking. If you restrict flavours to only tobacco flavour, as we see in the US pretty much at the moment, adults are then limited to flavours that remind them of smoking, and that is probably less likely to reduce the smoking prevalence in the population.

Photo of Kirsten Oswald Kirsten Oswald Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Women), Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Equalities)

Q To extend that conversation a bit, the issue of youth vaping is particularly concerning to me and obviously to many others around the table. You spoke to the Committee about how easy it is to buy products that are illegal but that may look to the unexpert eye as if they are legal products—even to the shopkeepers, one presumes. That must be much more difficult for children and young people—even people who are at the lower age of legally buying vapes—so I wonder what your thoughts are on how that might be acted upon. I also wonder whether you think that vape manufacturing is likely to be impacted by the measures in the Bill.

Mr Lawson:

I can answer that anecdotally for you. Of my friends and peer groups who vape, despite what I do for a living, they do not listen to me that the products they are using are illegal, so I think the only way to prevent those products being used is to enforce action against them being on the market to begin with. I think there is a complete lack of awareness and knowledge of the current regulations among shopkeepers, and among the population. Many people may choose to buy an illegal product despite it being illegal, but many people might not have made that decision had they known otherwise.

What we are seeing more recently in that category of illegal products is that the safety of those products is less well known than for products that have gone through the MHRA’s notification process. We have done research into their metals content, for example, and we see elevated levels that you would not normally see in a product that has been notified to the MHRA. There are a few layers of this, but I think that if consumers are not aware of the safety of the products they are using—which they are not—that is a bigger concern. Whether youth use them or not is a separate thing to that.

Photo of Dr Caroline Johnson Dr Caroline Johnson Ceidwadwyr, Sleaford and North Hykeham

Q Mr Lawson, you talked about how many of these products exceed the level, and those figures you presented were quite shocking, but how do people tell? You might think that if you went to a reputable major supermarket, the products there would be the right thing to buy, but we know that in February last year, Elf Bars were removed from Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s because their products—the Elf Bar 600s, I believe—were found to contain over 50% more than the legal limit of nicotine liquid.

I have three questions: how can a consumer tell if they are buying a legal product? How can a shop, particularly a smaller shop with fewer resources, tell that they are buying a legal product—as we have already heard, the MHRA does not actually test them? And are the penalties for getting this wrong enough?

Mr Lawson:

With respect to Elf Bar, the industry itself has tried to take some level of leadership. Distributors are now doing testing on products before they go to the shops, before they stock them or sell them on. My company is registered for testing with UKAS—the United Kingdom Accreditation Service. We work with trading standards, and we work with the industry in testing products like these, so I think this Elf Bar issue has been a bit of a wake-up for industry to take more action.

With respect to smaller stores, I mentioned post offices earlier, because you would assume that going into a post office, you would be able to purchase a legal and reputable product, but I think there is a lack of awareness among the people purchasing these products in stores about what is and is not illegal. I would assume that you should not be able to buy an illegal product; if I owned a store and I was able to buy these products somewhere, I would assume that the only things I could buy were legal. You do not go into a store and buy alcohol, for example, that is illegal, so I guess there is an assumption that products should be legal.

Photo of Dr Caroline Johnson Dr Caroline Johnson Ceidwadwyr, Sleaford and North Hykeham

Q The final part of that question was whether you think the penalties are enough of a deterrent, and whether you think the Bill does anything that will really resolve this.

Mr Lawson:

At the moment, there is little enforcement, so I guess anything is an improvement on the current status quo. The question is whether or not retailers make more money and can pay off the penalties due to the profits they are making from illegal products. It is a positive that some action is being taken, but it needs the enforcement behind that, too.

Photo of Dr Caroline Johnson Dr Caroline Johnson Ceidwadwyr, Sleaford and North Hykeham

Q Do you think the penalties should fall on the person who sold the good, rather than the person who produced and made the illegal product and released it for sale?

Mr Lawson:

You would find it very difficult to enforce it if you were trying to take action against a manufacturer in China, where you do not have jurisdiction. I think the only way of addressing this is in the UK, where the stores are purchasing products and then selling them on illegally.

Photo of Mary Glindon Mary Glindon Opposition Whip (Commons)

Q The UK Vaping Industry Association, which represents the vaping sector but not any of the tobacco companies that produce vapes—I note that John Dunne, the CEO, is in the Gallery today —has suggested that the Government should include a vape retailer and distributor licensing scheme in the Bill. The industry has itself developed a comprehensive framework for such a scheme, which it claims is designed to, once and for all, deal effectively with the issue of underage and illicit vaping sales. Would that be a big step forward to cut out illicit vape sales?

Mr Lawson:

The evidence I have seen is mainly from Spain, where tobacconists must be registered and licensed before they can sell products. In Spain traditionally, vape products have been sold only through licensed tobacconists. More recently, you can see them in convenience stores. I think we are seeing issues in Europe beyond the UK where products are now being sold illegally. Where they are sold in licensed outlets, you generally see much better compliance with the regulations. Obviously the licence can be removed, so it is a deterrent to the retailer to selling any of the products. That would be a good step in the right direction.

Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill Shadow Minister (Primary Care and Public Health)

Q You mentioned that your company is doing testing of products. One of the things that we heard just before your evidence was that what comes into the UK market obviously is not tested before it comes out, and we know that the illicit and non-compliant market is growing hugely. Can you talk us through what you do when you test your product? Where does it go?

Mr Lawson:

The main driver behind testing has been to support trading standards in taking enforcement action against illegal products in the market. The testing has therefore focused on two main areas. One is the tank volume, the 2 ml, and the other is the nicotine strength, the 20 mg/ml, so the testing looks entirely at whether products are simply complying with the regulations. I did hear some of the last answers, but there is a very simple step: when it is applied, the MHRA notification scheme works fairly well. Most of the products that we test are not on the notification system—they are not on the MHRA’s portal. There is no check from a retailer or an importer that the products must be on that portal, so there is a bit of an issue there; you can effectively bypass the entire notification process by importing products and selling. Additionally, if the products do not contain nicotine, they are not subject to MHRA regulations.

Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill Shadow Minister (Primary Care and Public Health)

Q How are those products coming into the market?

Mr Lawson:

They are being illegally imported. The majority of products are not produced in the UK; I would imagine that most products, if not every product produced here, would be compliant. These are products coming in from Shenzhen in China, generally. They are being illegally imported and illegally sold, so the question around taking enforcement action against the manufacturer may be fruitless, because you will not be able to enforce penalties against a Chinese manufacturer.

Mr Lawson:

I assume so. I am not sure whether Kate Pike from trading standards has given evidence, but trading standards has been involved in seizing quite a lot of products, particularly in Manchester, where there are container-loads coming straight in from China.

The other thing to mention is that vaping has been around in the UK for 14 or 15 years. It is only in the past two years that youth use has been a concern. This has come from the US, where youth use has been a concern for five or six years. The US has implemented new regulation that has prohibited almost all flavours. What we see now is a circumvention of products from the US to the UK, so these large tank sizes, cartoons and characterising flavours are products that were in, or were generated in, the US market and which are now coming to the UK, because the UK is a bit more of an open market for products to be sold. We can see that happening in Europe and some other countries as well, where products are now being trickled into the countries that have less stringent enforcement action.

Photo of Preet Kaur Gill Preet Kaur Gill Shadow Minister (Primary Care and Public Health)

Q We heard yesterday that with tobacco, you have track and trace. Do you foresee that if we had a track and trace system for vapes, it should largely address some of this?

Mr Lawson:

My personal opinion is that if the current regulations were enforced thoroughly, most of the issues we see today would not be a problem. If we go back two or three years, I would say that almost all products on the market would be compliant. We did not see large tanks or these characteristic products that are now illegal. If the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, which are the current UK regulations, were implemented or enforced properly, we would see a huge reduction in youth use, because those products that appeal to the youth would not be on the market.

Photo of Andrea Leadsom Andrea Leadsom The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

Q Thank you very much for coming today. Would you support an excise duty on vapes?

Mr Lawson:

I am not sure that that is an appropriate question for me. I am a scientist, rather than a policymaker.

Photo of Andrea Leadsom Andrea Leadsom The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

Q But in terms of behaviour, you have been talking about the targeting of children and so on, so I am asking you for your opinion. Are you also employed by the vaping industry?

Mr Lawson:

No. I work in pharmaceuticals and medical devices. The issue around excise duty is that the illegal products that we see youth buy are actually a lot more expensive than legal products. You might buy a legal product for £5 or £6, and an illegal product is probably £10 or £15. The cost does not seem to be a deterrent; larger products with these characterising flavours are what they are looking for. I think you may penalise adult smokers switching more than you would benefit children by preventing them from using products, if you applied a tax on vaping.

Photo of Andrea Leadsom Andrea Leadsom The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

Q Okay, but obviously an excise duty then enables more enforcement and the track and trace scheme to which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston referred to come into play for vapes, which could then mean better knowledge of which are legal and which are illicit. Would that be true?

Mr Lawson:

I guess the source of funding is a separate question, but if there was enforcement of the current regulations there would be a lot of revenue generated from the enforcement and penalties under the current regulations, which may fund track and trace or other policies.

Photo of Mary Foy Mary Foy Llafur, City of Durham

Q To follow on from Andrea, most of the experts we have heard from to date have been from the NHS or the medical profession—people with skin in the game and promoting good health and tobacco cessation. Who funds you to do your work?

Mr Lawson:

We are self-funded. We work with trading standards, so they fund part of our work. We work with the industry ensuring products are compliant. My other company develops medical products for quitting smoking and vaping. We straddle both sides—the tobacco side and the medical side.

Photo of Mary Foy Mary Foy Llafur, City of Durham

Q So it is self-funded.

Mr Lawson:

I set the business up, yes.

Photo of Mary Foy Mary Foy Llafur, City of Durham

Q And you work with trading standards in the local authority?

Mr Lawson:

We work with trading standards across England and Wales currently. Almost without exception all the testing that has been conducted on vaping in the UK would have come through our lab. The data that trading standards has is from the testing that we do for it, and from the enforcement that it has taken as well. The MHRA, as far as I know, does not conduct any testing.

Photo of Gordon Henderson Gordon Henderson Ceidwadwyr, Sittingbourne and Sheppey

If there are no more questions, we thank you for coming. We will move on to the next panel.