Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024: creating a smoke-free generation and tackling youth vaping

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill 2024 ("the bill") was laid in the UK Parliament on 5 November 2024. The bill aims to create a smoke-free generation and tackle youth vaping across the UK. In addition to this guidance, the UK government has also published factsheets about the bill.

Smoking causes illness and diseases like cancer and cuts lives short. More than 1 in 10 of all deaths in Wales in people aged 35 and over are linked to smoking. That’s an average of about 3,845 deaths in Wales each year.

As well as the personal cost, smoking has a significant impact on society, costing more than £17 billion a year. It also has a big impact on the NHS, with more than 17,000 hospital admissions a year in Wales.

In Wales, around 13% of people age 16 and over smoke. We have an ambition for Wales to be smoke-free by 2030. Although smoking rates have fallen from 23% since 2010, we want to help more smokers to quit and stop young people from ever starting in the first place.

Although it is illegal to sell nicotine vapes to people under 18 years old, children and young people, and people who have never smoked, are using them. In Wales, our data shows that 7% of young people aged 11 to 16 use vapes weekly. This is an increase from 5.4% in 2021. For pupils in year 11, the figure is 15.9%, up from 13.6% in 2021.

This is worrying, because many vapes contain nicotine, which is very addictive. We also don’t know what the long-term health impacts of vape use are yet.

Tobacco is very harmful. There is no safe level of smoking and no other consumer product kills up to two-thirds of its users.

Non-smokers are also exposed to second hand smoke, which can be particularly harmful to children and people with conditions like asthma. We want to protect future generations from the harms of tobacco and other smoking products. We are changing the law so children turning 15 this year, or younger, will never legally be sold these products.

On vapes, the health advice is clear:

• if you do not smoke, do not vape
• children and young people should never vape

The number of children and young people using vapes has increased significantly in recent years. We also know these products are being targeted at children through the huge range of flavours and vibrant packaging.

All 4 UK governments want to tackle smoking and youth vaping. We've worked closely with the other UK nations to develop the Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

The main aims of the bill are to:

• Create a smoke-free generation by making it an offence to sell tobacco or herbal smoking products to anyone born on or after 1 January 2009. It will also be an offence to buy these products on behalf of a person under this age.
• Reduce the appeal and availability of vapes and other nicotine products to children by enabling their flavours, point-of-sale displays and packaging to be restricted. Also put in place measures to prevent the advertising and sponsorship of vapes to prevent them from being deliberately branded and advertised to children. Vending machines containing vapes will also be banned, and it will become against the law to sell any nicotine product, nicotine and non-nicotine vapes to people under 18 years old. The free distribution of vapes will be banned.
• Ban the manufacture of oral tobacco products (for example, snus).
• Enable the existing smoke-free areas restrictions to be expanded to include vapes and heated tobacco. This will mean that vape-free and heated tobacco-free public places can be created.
• Introduce a scheme which requires retailers to have a licence before they can sell tobacco products, herbal smoking products, cigarette papers, vaping or nicotine products.
• Strengthen enforcement, including raising the level of fines and enabling on-the-spot fines to be issued.

If the bill is passed by Parliament, we will work with the other UK governments to implement the new law.

The aim is to progressively raise the age of sale for tobacco. There is no safe age to smoke and so the bill aims to prevent future generations from starting smoking in the first place.

If the bill becomes law, this will mean children who were born on or after 1 January 2009 will never legally be sold tobacco products.

Current smokers who are legally allowed to be sold tobacco products will not be affected and will still be sold tobacco products once the bill becomes law.

We are very concerned about the rise in vaping among children and young people.

Vaping products are regularly promoted in a way that appeals to children through:

• their flavours
• where they are displayed
• their retail packaging

The bill will enable regulations to be made to address these areas so we can keep these products away from children and stop the next generation from becoming addicted to nicotine or to vapes. This is important as we do not know the long-term health impacts.

If the bill becomes law, further consultation and engagement will take place before any specific measures are introduced.

However, we will introduce a ban on the sale of single-use vapes in Wales from 1 June 2025, because of their environmental impacts as well as their links to youth vaping.

In 2021, the law in Wales was changed to make hospital grounds, school grounds and public playgrounds smoke-free. This law built on changes introduced in 2007, which made indoor public spaces and workplaces smoke free.

As most people in Wales are non-smokers, we continue to look at all the options available to support people, particularly children, families and vulnerable people. We want to make sure people can enjoy public places free from exposure to dangerous second-hand smoke.

The bill will allow for regulations to be made in Wales to strengthen the existing bans on smoking in public places, by also preventing vapes and heated tobacco products from being used.

If the bill becomes law, further consultation and engagement would take place before any such measures are introduced.

The bill provides powers to introduce a licensing scheme in Wales, England and Northern Ireland for the retail sale of:

• tobacco products
• herbal smoking products
• cigarette papers
• vaping and nicotine products

If introduced, this would mean it would be an offence to sell these products in Wales without a license. A license holder and the retail premises would also be required to meet certain conditions before a licence is granted.

The aim of the licensing scheme is to support public health by ensuring these products are only sold in places meeting certain standards. The scheme will also support enforcement and enable officers to be able to issue fines of up to £2,500 for offences relating to a breach of licensing conditions, such as selling these products to children.

If the bill becomes law, further consultation and engagement would take place before any such measures are introduced.

In 2022, we published the tobacco strategy and delivery plan, which set a target for Wales to be smoke-free by 2030. This means reducing smoking rates to below 5% in adults.

Since then, our focus has been on reducing smoking rates and the impact of smoking, particularly to reduce smoking during pregnancy because of the significant harm smoking has on both mother and baby. We have also been working with the NHS to roll out and promote the "help me quit" in-hospital programme and support people to quit smoking when they are admitted to hospital for treatment.

We know around 7 in 10 smokers want to quit, but quitting can be difficult, and many people make several attempts before they succeed. The Welsh Government funds services to help people to quit smoking. Our free NHS service, help me quit, is available to support smokers. Since 2017, it has supported more than 100,000 people to quit smoking. Accessing NHS support increases smokers’ chances of success by up to 300% compared to going it alone.

There are also specialist programmes targeted at high-risk groups, such as the "JustB SmokeFree" programme, which focuses on preventing smoking among secondary school pupils in the areas with the highest smoking prevalence.

As the number of people using vapes is increasing, and many want help to quit, Public Health Wales is looking at how it can adapt the "help me quit" service to support adults and young people with their vape addiction.

Anyone looking for advice about stopping using vapes can contact "help me quit" through:

• the help me quit website
• telephone (freephone) 08000 852 219
• text 80818

Vape use by young people is very challenging for schools. To support them, Public Health Wales has published information and guidance for secondary school aged learners, which provides evidence-based information about how schools can respond to and help address vaping. A toolkit of resources has also been developed to support teachers.

A guide for parents is being developed and will be published soon.

As some young people may need help and support to overcome addiction, the resources signpost to the support services available for any young person who is addicted to nicotine through vapes.

Single-use vapes are a wasteful use of resources, create litter and plastic pollution in our environment and are linked to young people vaping.

To help address this, we will ban the supply of single-use vapes in Wales from 1 June 2025.

This ban is being taken forward separately to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and will be co-ordinated with similar action in the other UK nations.

The problem of illegal vapes and tobacco is a complex and large scale problem that is affecting every community in Wales. These products can be very harmful and some illegal vapes contain dangerous chemicals and harmful levels of metals like lead.

Enforcement teams in Wales seize products at ports and from shops to stop them being sold. They work closely with agencies from across the UK, including HMRC and border force, to protect public health.

As well as increased enforcement, we have supported awareness raising and training for enforcement and police officers to highlight how these products are affecting our communities. We have also supported development of the no ifs. no butts. website, which provides an anonymous way for the public to report illegal sales.

A strong approach to enforcement of the new proposals on tobacco and vapes will be vital to ensure they protect public health. The measures in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will provide enforcement teams with more tools to be able to deal with people who break the law, including people who are selling dangerous illegal products and those who sell to children.

If the bill is passed, we will work closely with businesses and local trading standards to ensure the new laws are implemented and enforced.

Vapes are often sold at a price that is affordable to children. We welcome the UK government’s plan to introduce a duty on vapes, as this will help to tackle the growing use among children. Previous increases in the price of tobacco have helped to reduce the number of children smoking.