The Tobacco and Vapes bill with the corresponding incremental tobacco purchase ban is being discussed in parliament today during the draft bill’s second reading which will end this Tuesday the 16th of April with a free vote on the bill. Vaping would still be allowed for mature adults but heated tobacco sticks and devices would fall under tobacco products and the incremental tobacco ban.
Almost all Labour Party MPs are expected as they have declared in unison to vote for the bill that will not be voted by many of the ruling party MPs. Liz Truss is one of them who was among many other MPs who spoke against the bill by making many significant points to counter and oppose it. “This bill will pass but it will pass with Labour votes”, predicted the representative of the Ealing Southall constituency who called for heated tobacco products to be exempted from the incremental tobacco purchase ban.
The health minister Victoria Atkinson introduced the bill to the house by making many points in relation to both smoking and vaping, characterising vaping as a menace for young people, that happens to be cynically marketed towards the underaged in shop counters and tills that are displaying vaping devices in the same place as chocolates and crisps, and by making reference to the pressure placed on politicians by the vaping and tobacco industries for the bill to be prevented, she said that she is introducing an effort “to move away from the idea that youngsters will be able to buy cigarettes at 18” which could all but definitely bring down smoking rates close to 0 by 2040, if those occurring will be punished by the law she is trying to impose with fine proceeds retained by local authorities for reinvestment as she mentioned. Along that the Chair of the Health & Social Care Committee said during the debate that it will not be okay for 18-year-olds to buy tobacco and that looking back we would be thinking how could it ever be.
The health minister admitted that the government and state is threatening the business model of the tobacco industry whose product she says is “stalling productivity and driving economic inactivity” and will cost the lives of half a million until 2030 spending £17 billion annually for healthcare costs of smoking-related illnesses whilst her bill can contribute up to £56 billion to the overall economy by 2026.
After a nicotine-free generation consisting of a smoke-free generation in parallel with a vape-free generation was suggested by a Labour Party MP, the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting spoke and named many high ranking government members who will vote against the bill by underestimating their arguments and their tone. Wes Streeting ironically confirmed that the bill is unconservative like many such as Liz Truss support by concluding that it is a Labour bill in sight of his party banning smoking back in 2007 and leading the anti-smoking campaign becoming the opinion of the state. He questioned the argument in favour of liberty by comparing it to everybody being free to do whatever they want in what he described as a libertarian dystopia supported by those other members and conservative opponents.
Winston Churchill going through 160,000 cigars in his lifetime was also mentioned by Wes Streeting who said that it was because of the Labour Party that he was chosen to lead the country by the rest of the Conservative Party by making him its leader. Some days ago former prime minister Boris Johnson said in a Canadian conference that it was inconceivable for Winston Churchill’s party to have come up with this initiative which bans tobacco sales from future generations. Sir Winston Churchill was rarely pictured in photographs without smoking a pipe or cigar.
The day did not go by without reference to the alcohol prohibition in America during the 1920s and what it led to, or reference to the addictiveness of salt and sugar and unhealthy ready-made food which should accordingly not be banned as a consequence either. “A little bit every now and again is good for your mental health” was also said by another MP. The existing relation to narcotic drugs was also mentioned when it was said that twice as many teenagers were found to be smoking cannabis from a certain constituency than those who were smoking tobacco, and the relative comparison made why to enforce tobacco bans in addition to existing enforcement for narcotic drugs.
Liz Truss started by mentioning that she voted against all previous prohibitions like she will do with the present one. It is about a technocratic establishment trying to limit liberty which is fundamentally wrong, she said. We are not better for making decisions for people than people themselves, with the exception of younger people who have not got full decision-making capability who need our support. The bill has not come from people, but from a group of people working in a professional capacity who are working for these proposals, said Liz Truss, and it is not the last that the “health police” wants to put forward, about how we dress, what we eat, how we enjoy ourselves. They don’t support freedom, said Liz Truss, but the government or the state knows best. She made reference to her private bill to ban puberty blockers and hormones blocked by the Labour Party MPs, which she said is what should be banned instead of cigarettes and as such if people want freedom they vote Conservative and otherwise they vote Labour. She reiterated that tobacco does not cause the damage to society that is done by narcotic drugs.
Famously quoted remarks included that “Freedom is not free” that is inscribed on marble in New York City but people before us have died for the freedom that we enjoy today, and that “If the people had a choice they would choose freedom” as Margaret Thatcher famously said. Other MPs said that what is regarded as freedom of choice is limited to lighting up your first cigarette after which choice is withdrawn because of dependence developing. It was also pointed out by the MP for Windsor, who voted against the generational ban, that the incremental tobacco ban legislates inequality under the law for citizens who are separated based on the generation they belong to and that raising the legal age required to buy tobacco to 21 years does not perpetuate such inequality.
The former health minister from Boris Johnson’s government, Sajid Javid, supported that nicotine is corrosive to personal liberty and agency and that many are lead to believe that smoking is a personal choice while nicotine is an addictive drug that corrodes personal agency and as a consequence anyone defending the standing against the bill is standing for giving access to drugs, as he characterised smoking tobacco in his speech, while another member of parliament supported that if cigarettes were to be designed today they would not have passed consumer safety tests.
Sir Simon Clarke said that in this country we are fortunate enough to have our rights from birth and not controlled by the state like in other countries whereas the provisions of the bill would contradict this. It was also pointed out at one stage that choice of the individual should be paramount, and during one other that nanny states create weak individuals.
However, the 67 MPs who voted against the bill did not finally find themselves with the majority which was 383 votes in favour of the Tobacco and Vapes bill through the second reading, with a majority of 317 votes and apparently as many as 200 MPs did not present to vote at all. From the 67 MPs who voted against the bill 59 of those are Conservative. If you were not expecting the same result and do not welcome it, sign the government petition against it here.
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