Members of the House of Lords from Tuesday (Feb 24) are set to begin their further examination of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill aims to create the first “smoke-free generation” by ensuring children turning 15 this year or younger can never be legally sold tobacco. It also seeks to enable product and information requirements to be imposed in connection with tobacco, vapes and other products.
It would also introduce stronger regulation of nicotine products, including an advertising ban, to help protect young people. If passed, the Bill would represent one of the most ambitious tobacco control measures globally and introduce stronger safeguards to reduce youth use of nicotine products, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches.
On Tuesday, the bill enter report stage in the House of Lords.
Report stage is an extra chance for members to closely scrutinise elements of the bill and make changes.
Three days of report stage have been scheduled so far:
- Tuesday 24 February
- Tuesday 3 March
- Thursday 5 March.
Members speaking on day one of report stage will consider amendments (changes) on subjects including raising the age of tobacco and vape sales to 21, specific methods of customer age verification, power to prohibit sales of tobacco and vape products, transparency of tobacco sales data to support health policy and establishment of a youth vaping and waste impacts taskforce.
Earleir, line-by-line examination of the bill took place in committee stage between Oct 27 and Nov 26.
For retailers, particularly convenience stores, the emerging framework could reshape how tobacco and vape products are stocked, displayed and sold.
At the centre of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a generational tobacco sales ban. The legal age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products would rise by one year every year from 2027, so that today’s teenagers are never legally able to buy tobacco in the UK.
The measure targets suppliers rather than smokers. Selling tobacco to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 would become an offence, but possession and smoking would not.
For retailers, this creates a long transition period in which age checks will become more complex, with different age thresholds applying to tobacco, alcohol and other age-restricted products.