Speeches by Johnson.

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I am grateful to the Minister for making clear that the reason that the text contained within the age of sale notice is not being amended at this stage is because Scottish Ministers have told him they would prefer to amend it themselves at a later date.”

“My hon. Friend is talking about the availability and visibility of products, and my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon talked about the availability of vaping products as medical products. However, the Committee heard evidence from the MHRA that there are no medically approved vaping devices currently regist…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which goes to the principle of advertising, and whether there needs to be an exemption for medical advertising of vaping as a stop smoking tool by health professionals, for example in doctors’ surgeries, where it may also be visible to child patients. That is not really the …”

“If my hon. Friend has a suggestion, I shall let him back in.”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Part of me wants to say, “Well, what do you do when the child goes into the newsagent? Put a blindfold on them?” If the displays are visible to adults, they will be visible to the children who are walking beside them. It would be helpful if my hon. Friend has any ideas on ho…”

“Thank you, Sir Roger. I am grateful for your guidance as Chair on the order of doing things. It has been, at times, quite confusing. Clauses 13, 14, 61 and 79 regulate the display of products in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. It does not take much to realise why that is necessary. Simply take a drive do…”

“In the provisional grouping provided by the Clerk, you have clauses 13, 14, 61 and 79 together. Would you like to—”

“Does my hon. Friend see it as an added stress or an added opportunity to add in-patient support to quit smoking to further benefit the individual’s mental and physical health?”

“I understand that my hon. Friend thinks that the amendment is sensible, but Dame Andrea Leadsom, the public health Minister in the previous Government, asked Mark Rowland, the chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, the “chicken-and-egg question”, as she put it: “Does smoking make you depressed, does depressio…”

“That is different from vaping, which seems to be a swap, rather than a swap to stop. A stop is less likely to occur with a vape that has cherry flavours and such like than it is with proper medical nicotine replacement therapy, which does not contain those added enticements. Nicotine replacements are available for chil…”

“In essence, in relation to clause 12, yes. I do not think that vending machines including tobacco and nicotine products or vapes are a good idea, and I moved a new clause for inclusion in the previous Bill because a ban on nicotine and vaping products in vending machines had not been included at the outset. Without suc…”

“It is catching—it is the time of day, I think. Paragraph 787 of the impact assessment says: “We know that one of the main reasons children take up vaping is due to peer pressure…It is therefore worth considering that instances of vape vending machines in easily accessible areas might be an enabler for those who would n…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I will come to amendment 96 and the mental health aspect shortly, but I will deal with the clause first, which makes sure that these vending machines are not available. At the moment, one can buy nicotine products in a vending machine where those exist. As I said, the ASH s…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for providing the extra information. Amendments 63, 64, 81 and 80 were designed once again to provoke debate on the coherency of the penalties across the different clauses of the Bill. Sometimes the penalties are different for the same offence and, inexplicably, sometimes they are the same…”

“I thank the Minister for clearly explaining that children should never vape. In fact, if children are smoking and wish to quit, they can get support from their GP and others, but they should not use vaping, because vaping is bad for children. To take the Minister back to my question about new clause 10, before he took …”

“The Minister knows me well enough to understand that I would never seek more lenient penalties for those selling vapes to children; there is no excuse for selling vapes to children. However, I am concerned that there may be sales in the online marketplace that are not adequately covered by the regulations as they are c…”

“My hon. Friend talks about children self-medicating, but are they not making the situation worse? The use of vapes and nicotine products may exacerbate, rather than ease, any mental health symptoms that they have.”

“That is very kind of you, Sir Roger. It is good to see you in the Chair, and an honour to serve under your chairmanship again. As you have been briefed, we are discussing clause 10, the importance of banning the sale of vaping and nicotine products to children. We had just moved on to new clause 10, which is part of th…”

“My hon. Friend can ask me later, when we come to the colours and flavours. To summarise, clause 10 is an important clause that seeks to stop children getting hold of vapes and nicotine products and, in so doing, aims to reduce the number of children who get hooked on nicotine, which has very harmful effects, and who ma…”