Tobacco and Vapes Bill Report Stage: Amendment 85

What happened: The House of Commons voted on 26 March 2025 on Amendment 85 to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill during its Report Stage (the detailed scrutiny stage at which MPs can propose changes to a Bill before its final vote). The amendment, which would have weakened the Bill's restrictions on tobacco and vaping products, was defeated by 303 votes to 92. The result means the Bill's existing provisions remained intact.

Why it matters: The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is designed to create what the government describes as a "smokefree generation" by progressively raising the minimum legal age for purchasing tobacco, so that anyone who was 16 or younger in 2025 will never legally be able to buy tobacco products. The Bill also strengthens regulation of vaping products and advertising. By rejecting this amendment, the Commons preserved those stronger public health protections. The vote is part of a series of decisions taken on the same day that together kept the Bill in its more stringent form, ahead of a Third Reading vote that passed comfortably by 366 to 41.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. All 267 Labour MPs and all 31 Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted did so against the amendment, as did the Greens and the Ulster Unionist. Eighty-three Conservatives voted in favour of weakening the Bill, alongside five Reform UK members, two Democratic Unionist Party members, one Traditional Unionist Voice member and three independents. No Conservative voted against the amendment, and no government-party MP voted for it. The division sits within a broader debate in which the Conservatives had actually introduced a similar Bill in the previous Parliament; the opposition to this version centred less on the principle of reducing smoking and more on concerns about regulatory burden, the growth of illegal tobacco markets, and personal liberty arguments articulated most prominently by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.