Looking at this Bill, the four pillars of it are a new tax, a full ban, 40 new enforcement posts, and an annual cost of new inspection powers. I would have preferred the Bill to go into more detail about the power of the inspection, what we are expecting from that and the costs surrounding it, but I am sure it will be fleshed out later. I am sure the Minister of State will address it as time goes on. Like my colleague, Deputy Mark Ward, said, there is no town, village or city that has not seen a huge influx of these types of shops, single-use vape shops that are brightly coloured. Some of them almost look like ice cream parlours with bright neon and various lights inside them, attracting young eyes. It would be very easy to say it looks more like a pick and mix shop than anything tobacco related, particularly because of the bright colours such as raspberry, watermelon and all of these sorts of things. There is a question on this issue we are not addressing in this House. There seems to be a huge influx of these shops popping up everywhere, along with the barber shops that will only take cash, will not take a credit card and will not or are unable to print a receipt. There are questions about that. I regret very much that this Bill is not encompassing head shops. That is a serious problem we have in this country. We have not looked at the planning permissions either when it comes to local authorities giving out permission because these shops seem to be popping up everywhere. How is it we can have a high street with these types of vape shops and head shops down the road? As Deputy Mark Ward said about the gas bullets that are available out there, they are all being sold in head shops. They are available to people and it is something we need to crack down on. This Bill has a lot of merits. I am concerned about where the taxation is, the spending, the creating of 40 new posts and exactly what will be done, but we need to address these matters. The other side of this is that we have to get the balance right. Everybody has the right to smoke a vape or cigarette, drink alcohol or whatever. I have no problem with that. That is up to anyone who is over 18. That is fair. However, we have to take account of health. We also need to look in particular at how we educate people to stay away from these things. How do we educate people on how this is damaging their health? How much of the tax that is being collected is being directly put into advertising and into informing people of better health choices? A Deputy spoke about how it was affecting young people's skin and how her beautician told her that it had a negative effect on people's skin. Why are we not advertising that to young people? In an age where we have young people on TikTok trying to imitate the Kardashians and whoever else of the social media people out there living their best lives, or portraying that, why are we not advertising towards them? A little bit more of the moneys collected via tax needs to be aimed directly towards young people and telling people that it is their choice if they are over 18 but these are the consequences. That is what we really need to look at. It is a mature conversation and it is the right conversation to have.
Sentiment score: 0.08