Hansard

Thank you to Siobhian Brown for lodging her motion for debate, providing a timely opportunity to discuss the phenomenal growth in vaping that has left behind both our understanding and regulation of e-cigarettes.

The great vape debate is often whether e-cigarettes are saving smokers or creating new addicts. I suspect that the answer is probably both. Lung disease remains the third largest killer in Scotland, with smoking still the biggest cause. However, smoking rates in Scotland have seen a welcome decrease from 28 per cent of adults in 2003 to 11 per cent in 2021, largely thanks to policy interventions such as the ban on smoking in public places that Pauline McNeill mentioned.

Given that vaping appears less harmful than smoking, albeit that that is not a high bar, e-cigarettes have been seen as a useful tool for those who wish to quit smoking tobacco, but it is also clear that vaping is far from risk free. As a number of members have mentioned, we do not fully understand the long-term health effects, but recent studies have suggested that e-cigarettes can impact heart and lung health, and most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is of course addictive. The sharp increase in the proportion of e-cigarette users who have never smoked before should concern us all.

I know that there is still limited data on the proportion of young people who are vaping. ASH Scotland found that the number of 11 to 17-year-olds who have tried vaping has risen to 15.8 per cent from 11.2 per cent in 2021. These are trends that cannot be allowed to continue largely unchecked. Even though a person has to be over 18 to purchase e-cigarettes legally, it is clear that the brightly coloured and fruit-flavoured vapes are marketed in a way to attract—in fact, ruthlessly target—young people, often on social media platforms. They are also considerably cheaper than cigarettes. According to ASH Scotland, the monthly cost of e-liquids is around £56 compared to the £250 per month that the average cigarette smoker would spend. They are also far more readily available.

It is therefore understandable that there are widespread calls for action. Asthma + Lung UK Scotland wants the Government to fully enact the remaining regulations from the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 to restrict the marketing and promotion of vaping products, particularly to children and young people. I hope that that is what the Government’s recent consultation on this ultimately delivers.

Along with the health concerns surrounding e-cigarettes, the toxic and single-use plastic waste that is caused by disposable vapes is also becoming a deep concern and one that I want to focus the rest of my comments on. I had the privilege of meeting the environmental campaigner Laura Young, who has led the way in seeking action to tackle the environmental impact of disposable vapes, collecting many hundreds off our streets herself. It is a blight that has crept up on us but one that is growing at a pace. According to research by Material Focus, at least 1.3 million disposables vapes are thrown away every week in the UK. That conservative estimate is two every second. It is the equivalent of 22 football pitches of plastic litter, but less than a third is recycled.

The lucrative vaping market as a whole in the UK is worth more than £1 billion a year and more than half of children today say that disposables are their preferred product. As well as targeting those young people, the industry is failing to take any responsibility for collecting and recycling its product. Ultimately, it is not realistic to think that the majority of users of disposable vapes will collect them up and take them to their nearest recycling centre. Scotland’s ban on single-use plastics became fully effective in August 2022, but there is a clearly a loophole in the failure to include disposable vapes, which are largely made of plastic.

I welcome the fact that the Government has commissioned a review into the environmental impact and management of disposable vapes, which could lead to a ban on the product. If we are being honest, I do not think that we need a review to tell us that there are already alternatives out there and that disposable vapes are an unnecessary evil that could and should be banned. The Scottish Government’s upcoming circular economy bill is a prime opportunity to deliver a ban. I strongly urge the Government to take that opportunity and get on with ending the sale of disposable vapes in our shops.