Meeting of the Parliament 01 December 2015
I am glad to be given the opportunity to speak in today’s debate on the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Bill. As members are aware, the bill contains four main proposals: to introduce restrictions on the sale of nicotine vapour products, commonly known as e-cigarettes; to make it an offence to smoke in a designated area outside NHS hospital buildings; to create a legal requirement for health and social care organisations to inform people who have been harmed by their care or treatment; and to establish a new criminal offence of ill treatment or wilful neglect in health and social care settings.
I would like to say a few words on each of those points. E-cigarettes are a relatively new product and their use has grown very quickly indeed. When we were working on the original smoking ban in the Parliament back in 2005, there was certainly no discussion of e-cigarettes—they were basically an unknown product. E-cigarettes were only introduced to the United Kingdom in 2006. In 2010, only 3 per cent of adult smokers in Scotland had used an e-cigarette, but by early 2014, that figure had risen to some 17 per cent.
Due to the fact that e-cigarettes are a new product, there are no longitudinal studies to show the long-term impact of using them. Public Health England has reviewed the available evidence and has concluded that vaping is safer than smoking and that it seems to support smoking cessation, with those who use NVPs having a higher success rate at stopping smoking than those who do not.
However, that does not mean that vaping is safe. We must not forget that it takes a long time for the damage caused by smoking to become evident. A lot of men started smoking during world war one, when cigarettes were handed out as rations to soldiers, but deaths caused by lung cancer did not peak in men until the 1970s. Women in general did not take up smoking until world war two, around 20 years later, and deaths from lung cancer peaked and stabilised in women in the 1990s—20 years later than men. Almost exactly the same time period—about 50 years—elapsed between men starting to smoke and peak male lung cancer deaths and women starting to smoke and maximum deaths from lung cancer in women.
Given that information, I believe that the Scottish Government is wise to be cautious and to restrict and regulate the sale and marketing of e-cigarettes. I certainly support the recommendation to make it illegal to sell NVPs to those who are under the age of 18 and the recommendation on the power to prohibit the sale of NVPs in vending machines.
I am pleased that NVP retailers will require to be registered on the tobacco and nicotine vapour product retailer register, and that they must ask for proof of age before selling e-cigarettes to customers. It is vital, with such a new product, that we protect our children from any as yet unknown health problems that may appear over time. I agree with the committee that the Scottish Government should seriously consider asking the NHS to provide national guidance on the known risks and benefits of using NVPs to stop smoking, so that people who are trying to stop can make an informed choice about which types of smoking cessation products they wish to use.
I support the Government’s proposal on the power to restrict advertising of NVPs to the point of sale. That strikes a balance between allowing smokers some information about NVPs as a safer alternative to cigarettes while not—I would hope—attracting new non-smoking customers.
Paragraph 90 of the committee’s report states:
“We support the precautionary approach adopted by the Scottish Government in relation to advertising of NVPs given the need to balance encouraging smokers to switch to NVPs as an aid to smoking cessation whilst also not attracting new ‘never smoked’ NVP users.”
I am concerned about that area. We run the risk of having the process of denormalising smoking in our society stopped in its tracks by e-cigarettes, and there is a genuine risk that the new activity of vaping and using e-cigarettes could be seen as a route back into smoking. I am concerned that much of the television and other advertising glamorises e-cigarettes and their use in an attempt to attract younger, new non-smokers to take up e-cigarettes.