I welcome this Bill. I have been critical of the Government in lots of areas but I have to say that this legislation is a positive further step in protecting the health of all our citizens but especially our children. It would be remiss of me not to be a bit critical and say that I am not sure if it is enough in itself because we are dealing with what I would call a subversive and well-resourced industry. We think back to the Philip Morris days in the 1950s. The industry is still finding clever ways to sneak in and get people to buy its drugs so it will try to find loopholes around whatever laws we have as it did before in marketing colourful and dangerously addictive nicotine products directly to young people and diversifying them to tie in with modern lifestyles. I am reminded of the old ads in the 1950s where smoking was seen as glamorous, cigarettes were fitted into movies and it was stylistic. The industry is doing that with the flavours as well, not just with tobacco but also with vapes, which we are trying to make progress on. It reminds me of alcopops in the nineties and noughties when companies were trying to get young people into these types of products by making them more consumable, for want of a better term, so we will have to keep up. We have to make sure the industry does not start creeping ahead again. It will have to be monitored constantly. There are some good elements in the Bill. Section 18 contains a prohibition on the sale of all nicotine consumption products, such as pouches and gels, to anyone under the age of 18 and expands enforcement powers. If we can inspect the supply chain and target any type of advertising and website marketing these nicotine products to minors, it is a good thing. Maybe I am not 100% sure and maybe I rushed through the legislation too quickly or did not read it thoroughly enough, but will the Minister of State outline whether this Bill will also target influencers and the social media side of things because that constitutes advertising as well? Section 20 contains an outright ban on advertising and point-of-sale display of e-cigarettes and pouches in what is called the mixed retail environment. Some of these outlets will not like this but it is critical. Any sort of restrictions on imagery and clamping down on flavour descriptions are great. It is complementary to the Public Health (Single-Use Vapes) Bill 2025, which we debated in this Chamber a while back. Again, it attempts to strip away the attractiveness and visibility of nicotine products in the same way the single-use vapes Bill targets the equipment by banning cheap disposable vapes. The industry found workarounds in the UK with regard to that, so we must constantly be on our toes. A shortcoming of this Bill is the fact that, as far as I can gather, menthol and mint flavours are still available. Is that the case? No. It is good to get some clarification on that. I did not want to be just making that statement as if I knew it. It is good that this has been dealt with. The other risk is that when we move away from so-called nicotine products, and I am not trying to pass the buck and start looking at another line of argument, companies and different supply chains, for want of a better term, will probably try to find zero nicotine-type chemicals as workarounds. They will always find something. We have had debates about nitrous oxide canisters in this Chamber. There are other types of chemicals and drugs that people will be encouraged to get. The Department should be ready to see what is starting to trickle in in other countries where the legislation has been tightened up and start working on legislation to deal with that if it is not covered under existing legislation. I do not think the other two listed colleagues are coming to the House, so Deputy Ward will be able to speak shortly. As I have said previously, this legislation is not worth the paper it is printed on without resourcing the enforcement. We have better enforcement in the Bill, but unless we resource the enforcers and ensure that action is taken, it is pointless. We require quite a lot of money in additional annual funding. I hope that we can claw back some of that funding and resourcing through proper fines. We have very inadequate fines in many areas, litter being a case in point. I hope the fines that are being looked at for breaches of this legislation will be sufficiently robust. Hopefully, we will get the income to pay for some of the enforcement in the short to medium term, so environmental health officers and anyone else doing test purchases and so on will be able to go in and catch the people who breach the legislation. I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward the Bill. I look forward to further discussion on it.

Sentiment score: 0.16