Legislating to create a smokefree generation: LGA consultation response

Agree

The LGA supports the government’s progressive move to consider raising the legal age of sale for tobacco products. This is a progressive policy that will have a positive impact on smoking prevalence, and ultimately reduce rates of smoking-related disease. This proposal is supported by 71% of the public, with 17% opposed. This includes majority support from voters of the main political parties (Con 77%, Lab 69%, Lib Dem 63%). 

Raising the legal age for tobacco purchase has been shown to reduce the likelihood of young people starting to smoke. The UK saw a fall in youth smoking when age of sale was raised from 16 to 18 in 2005, and when it was increased to 21 in the US more recently.

Acknowledging nicotine's highly addictive nature, restricting tobacco access for those born after January 1, 2009, aims to prevent lifelong addiction, particularly among young individuals, breaking the cycle of addiction in adulthood.

To make such a policy effective, we support strict enforcement measures and tough penalties for selling tobacco and e-cigarettes to those underage.

The LGA also calls on the government to boost the future pipeline of qualified trading standards officers through a dedicated apprenticeship fund, investing in regional support networks, and enabling councils to recover regulatory service costs.

Whilst we welcome the additional funding, it is essential that councils are given more certainty around future public health grant funding, including multi-year settlements.

As the policy evolves, engaging young people, parents, and retailers in the consultation process is crucial given their significant impact.

Yes

Proxy sales involve the sale of age-restricted products to adults purchasing on behalf of underage customers. Proxy sales are already prohibited under existing age of sale legislation. To be consistent, proxy sales regulations will need to change in line with the age of sale regulations.

Without legal measures, there would be no deterrent for those buying for others, and those under the legal age would be less inhibited to approach people to buy on their behalf. 

E-cigarettes/vapes should also be included within age restriction/proxy-purchasing legislation. Buying from shops, being given, and informal purchases from a friend, family member or someone else, are the most common routes of sourcing e-cigarettes by young people. 

The proposals will have implications for retailers with a change required to the age verification process. A cashier will need to verify that a customer was born before 1 January 2009 before making a sale.  

Challenge25 and 'No ID, No Sale' are long running successful policies created to support retailers who are doing their job by enforcing the law on age restricted sales. Under the scheme, customers attempting to buy age-restricted products are asked to prove their age if in the retailer's opinion they look under 25.

These initiatives make it much easier for retail staff to ‘challenge’ customers who are potentially under the age of 18 without being seen as confrontational. Modern tills already include POS software to make it easier for retailers to carry out their ‘due diligence’ checks before selling age-appropriate products. 

However, enforcement of proxy sales is very difficult and as it is about the personal conduct of an individual, it is rarely, if indeed ever, taken on by a local authority Trading Standards service due to a range of restrictions around powers and safeguarding

Agree

We agree that all tobacco containing products as well as cigarette papers and herbal smoking products should be covered by the new legislation, mirroring current age of sale laws.

The tobacco industry will consistently seek to recreate highly addictive products to retain their consumer base. Including all the products above maintains consistency and prevents the exploitation of loopholes within the legislation by the tobacco industry. Consistency is crucial for effective enforcement, as it minimises challenges and prevents potential manipulation through inconsistencies.

Agree

Warning notices in retail premises will need to be changed to reflect the new legislation. It will support retailers in explaining the change in law to customers when it comes into effect and will make enforcement easier. Another area which should be considered for amendment is the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display) (England) Regulations 2010 which permits tobacco (and price lists) to be displayed on request to anyone aged 18 or over which would be inconsistent with the new regulation. The proposed introduction of the new regulations in January 2027 would allow plenty of time for retailers and customers to become accustomed to the new rules and make the necessary changes needed. 

We welcome the announcement that funding for enforcement will be increased, particularly as we are aware of capacity and workforce issues within Trading Standards teams. The success of the new legislation will be dependent upon the ability to enforce it, and it is therefore crucial that adequate funding and resources are dedicated towards this.

Agree

The marketing of vapes to children is utterly unacceptable. It is crucial to strike the right balance between reducing the appeal to children while also preserving the appeal of vapes to adults who want to quit.

Flavours, and more importantly, the way the flavours are described along with branding, appear to be attracting children to vaping. We believe and the evidence would substantiate this, that vaping product flavours are attractive to children.

Surveys of children conclude that children try vapes out of curiosity, due to flavour options or peer pressure. Flavour names can be appealing, such as ‘Gummy Bear, ‘Candy Floss’ and that the flavours make the vapes appear harmless.

These flavours may also be attractive to adults but concerningly, they appear to be  deliberately designed to appeal to children – with some children starting vaping who have never previously smoked. 

Some evidence has noted that flavours other than tobacco (such as menthol), can play a part in helping users quit smoking. However, a balance must be struck between attracting adult smokers to vaping and vaping not becoming attractive to children. 

Thousands of vape products are registered with the MHRA, in a huge array of sweet flavour combinations. Many governments have elected to ban flavoured vapes or e-liquids in the hopes of dissuading underage vaping. This includes Ukraine, Lithuania, Finland, Hungary, Denmark, Netherlands and in some provinces and states in Canada and the US, only tobacco or menthol-flavoured vapes are available. 

In 2022, China introduced a ban on flavoured vapes with plans to only sell tobacco-flavoured vapes. Interestingly, China has not banned the export of flavoured vapes, only the use within China itself. 

Consideration needs to be given as to how minimise harm to the young without blocking adult tobacco smokers who might use vapes as a quit tool.

• Option 1: limiting how the vape is described
• Option 3: limiting the characterising flavours (the taste and smell) of vapes

Clear and precise regulations limiting how the vape is described would enable enforcement officers to remove non-compliant products from the shelves while ensuring that flavoured products are still available for smokers looking to quit. 

As a minimum, the description of vape flavours should be limited to ensure it is not used to market vapes to children and young people. 

This could be achieved by putting restrictions on the naming of flavours and descriptions used so they are not advertised as appealing to children or appropriate for use by someone of their age. 

Limiting flavour descriptors whilst not removing their availability from the market maintains their appeal to adults as a stop smoking tool whilst decreasing their appeal to children.

Read our policy position on disposable vapes. 

• Option C: flavours limited to tobacco, mint, menthol and fruits only

A 2019 US study found that over two-thirds of current e-cigarette users typically use non-tobacco flavours and flavour was a cited by nearly one-third of participants as a reason for vaping initiation.

Worryingly, users of flavoured vapes reported greater satisfaction and self-perceived addiction, and participants aged 18-24 stated flavour, particularly fruit, was more likely to motivate them to initiate vaping.

Limiting flavour descriptors whilst not removing their availability from the market maintains their appeal to adults as a stop smoking tool whilst decreasing their appeal to children.

We therefore recommend that any flavours which refer to products which do not fit into one of the categories above are banned e.g. candy floss, bubble gum, salted caramel, ice cream sundae, hubba bubba. The number of flavours available should be limited, whilst flavour descriptions should be limited to one word only. 

No. Fruit, menthol/mint and tobacco are presently the top three flavour choices amongst adult vape users in the UK. There is a need for regulation on descriptions of flavours.

Yes

Yes. Inclusion of 0% nicotine products should be included in all regulations for vape products to make enforcement simpler and to prevent tobacco companies exploiting loopholes in the legislation. 

Option 1: vapes must be kept behind the counter and cannot be on display, like tobacco products

Keeping vapes behind the counter would ensure that there is another opportunity for the retailer to assess the age of the customer before selling the product; this would reduce the ease with which a child could purchase a vape. 

Keeping vapes out of sight in convenience stores and other non-specialist vape shops would reduce the opportunity to promote the products to children. Treating vape products and tobacco in the same way will make it simpler for both businesses and enforcers to follow the legislation. 

It is not right that stores are able to prominently display vaping paraphernalia for all to see, such as in shop windows, often in bright, colourful packaging that can appeal to children. 

The sale of vapes in other non-convenience stores and specialist shops should also be prohibited. There has been an increase in vapes being sold in a range of non-usual settings, such as ‘American Candy’ shops, barber shops, mobile phone shops, making it even easier for children to access/view these products, particularly as they are often displayed very visibly in windows, near sweets or other products designed specifically for children. It is utterly unacceptable for vapes to be marketed to children in this way. Keeping vapes out of sight in convenience stores and other non-specialist vape shops would reduce the opportunity to promote the products to children.

No. The definition of specialist vape shop needs to be very carefully worded as this would create loopholes that could be easily exploited.

The definition of specialist tobacconist in the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002 is a shop selling tobacco products by retail (whether or not it also sells other things) more than half of whose sales on the premises in question derive from the sale of cigars, snuff, pipe tobacco and smoking accessories. 

There are many shops which purport to be other types of shops – such as American candy shops, mobile phone accessory shops – where vape sales could contribute more than half of sales and yet they do not merit any relaxing of legislation to protect children.

Specialist vape shops should be a point of access for those of legal age to buy them, and not serve as an advertising mechanism within communities for vaping.

N/A

Option 3: prohibiting the use of all imagery and colouring and branding (standardised packaging) for both the vape packaging and vape device

Vapes should be treated the same way as cigarettes, including introducing standardised (or plain) packaging as an effective intervention. 

A recent study from King’s College London found that removing brand imagery from packs reduced appeal of vapes to teenagers without reducing appeal to adults.

Another study by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) found that removing brand imagery could have an impact in reducing the appeal of e-cigarettes to young people without compromising their appeal to adult smokers. Furthermore, 37% of children who had never tried an e-cigarette expressed a preference when shown a fully branded packs and 27% expressed a preference when shown the packs without brand imagery. This indicates that children are influenced by the branding currently used by manufacturers, and restrictions would be a simple method in reducing their appeal to children. 

N/A

Agree

The LGA urges the Government to prohibit the sale and supply of disposable vapes, aligning with public sentiment demonstrated by a recent YouGov poll showing 77% support such a ban. Our reasoning focuses on three aspects:

Environmental harms:

Government has made significant steps to reduce the production and sale of single-use plastic items (e.g. cotton buds) due to costs and environmental impacts. The explosion in the discarding of disposable vapes compromises this effort enormously.

Research reveals that 5 million disposable vapes are improperly discarded weekly, accumulating to 260 million annually. Just 17% of users recycle them correctly, with 73% ending up in landfill. This cost is not met by producers, importers or retailers, but by local taxpayers.

Worldwide Bans/EU Legislation:

France,Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, and Australia, are considering or have already implemented bans on disposable vapes due to health and environmental concerns. The EU's new regulations will impact international producers, potentially diverting non-compliant vapes to less-regulated markets like the UK. 

Waste processing/recycling:

Disposable vapes consist of various components that need to be properly disposed of as electrical waste. The majority of these products are not designed for easy disassembly and have to be manually pulled apart, making recycling challenging. The limited number of disposable vapes self-reported to be recycled by the vape industry remain pitifully low. 

Vapes contain valuable resources (such as lithium). These resources are often lost as they generally end up within mixed waste. Littering or discarding them in bins heightens the risk of mixing with residual waste, posing fire hazards in waste vehicles and transfer stations.

Zurich Municipal revealed bin lorry blazes surged 62% between 2020-22. Fires create health and safety risks for the workforce and incur substantial costs, affecting processing efficiency. Indirect costs include increased insurance premiums, potentially limiting future insurance coverage for infrastructure projects.

Agree

The LGA is calling for a complete prohibition of the sale and supply of disposable vapes. Disposable vapes are inherently unsustainable, and when you weigh up every environmental and public health consequence, we believe a ban is justified. 

The prohibition of goods, in itself, is unlikely to solve the problem, however, there are alternatives, and we are not suggesting a complete ban on all vapes, we remain committed to reusable/refillable vapes, with tighter conditions on their sale, marketing and availability. 

Through the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Government has the power to ban ‘injurious substances’ that damage the environment or harm health. A ban on disposable vapes can therefore be achieved using these powers, as was the case with plastic straws and other single-use items.

There appears to be no clear evidence to support claims that a black market would develop, and that a ban would flood the market with illicit, unregulated vapes. A black market already exists for disposable vapes, with millions of illegal items already flooding into the UK. 

In Kent, between 2021-2023, almost 400,000 illegal vapes were seized (the majority at Dover Port). The data - obtained by retailer Vape Club - suggests the interception of illegal products nationally in the first four months of 2023 was seven times higher than the entirety of 2021. 

The disposable vape sector are using similar arguments used by the tobacco industry. We do not remember a single tobacco control measure (point of sale display, vending machine ban, increasing age of sale to eighteen, standard packaging, ban on menthol cigarettes) where the tobacco industry did not say that it would lead to an increase in illicit trade.

Illicit activity is a criminal activity. To curb the illicit disposable vape trade, it is essential to secure comprehensive strategies for tackling criminal activities.

N/A

Agree

A 6-month period after the law is introduced would make sense, with a sell-out period to allow for shops to sell their stock. Urgent action is required to prevent further damage to council waste equipment and other detrimental impacts on the environment.

Rather than taking time to slowly develop more complex solutions, a ban would signal the Government’s commitment to the urgency of tackling this issue to reduce further detrimental harms to the environment. 

Any product or description which contains elements that make that product appealing to a child should be included in the restrictions.  Vapes should be a single refillable device to enable the inhalation of nicotine containing liquid for the purpose of supporting tobacco smoking cessation. Consideration should also be given to the requirement for MHRA to approve product design / packaging as part of the approval process for nicotine products. 

Yes

Some vapes which are declared as non-nicotine / nicotine free / 0% nicotine have been tested and have been found to contain levels of nicotine, for example 2% nicotine.

This demonstrates that consumers, including children, may think that they are avoiding nicotine by purchasing these products, when they are in fact receiving a high dose of the highly addictive nicotine substance. 

These products imitate the behaviour of vaping and smoking, which in turn can be habit forming. Although this can be a benefit in the final stage of tobacco smoking cessation, it can also form a habit in individuals not addicted to nicotine, forming a pattern of addictive behaviour that could lead to the use of nicotine containing products. 

In addition, findings revealed by the 2023 ASH study show that 51% of 11-17 year olds who currently vape said that the e-cigarette they used most often always contained nicotine; 30% said it sometimes contained nicotine; 9.5% that it never contained nicotine; with 10% saying they didn’t know. 

We believe that the Government should impose further restrictions on non-nicotine vapes to prevent uptake from children and young people and to prevent industry from using this as a loophole to avoid regulations.

Yes

The UK Government and devolved administrations should regulate non-nicotine vapes under a similar regulatory framework as nicotine vapes for the reasons outlined above. 

Non-nicotine vapes should be banned from sale or supply to under 18s and face the same restrictions on packaging and branding. Non nicotine vapes should also be notified and published by the MHRA. 

Don’t know

The long-term health impact of nicotine pouches is still unknown. We have no “evidence” but are aware that nicotine pouches are designed to appeal to children and young people and are promoted to give the impression that consumption of nicotine is “cool” and risk free. This undermines the attempts to ensure that nicotine is not consumed by children at all.

Currently, there are limited marketing restrictions and product requirements for nicotine pouches, and no age of sale. These products are currently unregulated, which leaves children and young people vulnerable to the highly targeted marketing that has been developed specifically to increase sales, and therefore harm. The Government should act to introduce tighter regulation to protect children from being able to access these, and other harmful, products and stop them being advertised as something which is fun and exciting or suitable for children. 

Nicotine pouches should be regulated in a similar way to vaping products. More research is needed into the long-term impact they have on health, and it may be the case that they could be helpful as a tool to help smokers quit. However, it is clear that children and non-smokers should not be being encouraged to use them.

Yes

Regulations are required to cover all nicotine products. 

The Tobacco and Related Product Regulations only cover e-cigarettes and novel tobacco products, not novel nicotine products such as pouches. 

That means that for novel nicotine products there are:

 • No age of sale regulations so they can be sold to anyone, as well as being handed out free. 

• No standardised regulatory requirement for information on packaging to provide information to consumers. 

• No controls on their advertising, promotion and sponsorship – these products are being promoted online via influencers, free samples and competitions. 

• No limits on nicotine content – some of them are very high strength, much higher than allowed by the regulations for e-cigarettes. 

• No regulation of contents or ingredients – other than that required for them to conform to general product safety rules. 

The regulations need to be revised to include not just nicotine pouches but any novel nicotine products, as this is a market which is likely to continue to evolve as companies seek to exploit loopholes in the legislation. 

Yes

We believe that an increase in price of vapes, would be effective in reducing the number of children vaping. 

The simplest manner would be a form of an excise duty. This will have the significant added advantage of bringing the products into the excise regime providing powers to HMRC and Border Force to prevent illegal products coming into the country.

We would be supportive of the introduction of an excise duty on vapes but only if the proceeds were specifically ringfenced for environmental, public health and enforcement purposes. Even if a new excise duty were introduced, this would not solve the other major issues with disposable vapes, such as their environmental impact, use by children and young people and enforcement capacity.

Increased enforcement and registration of retailers will not change consumer behaviour in discarding used vapes.

Non-tobacco nicotine and vaping products are currently subject to the standard rate of VAT at 20%. Medicinally regulated products are subject to the reduced rate of VAT at 5%. An excise duty would go some way to ensure that more data on who sells and supplies vaping products are required to comply with some reporting requirements and the numbers supplied legally into the UK.

Yes

Powers to issue fixed penalty notices would provide an alternative means for local authorities to enforce age of sale legislation for tobacco products and vapes in addition to existing penalties.

We support proposals around issuing Fixed Penalty Notices around breaches of sale of both tobacco products and vaping products. 

The use of FPNs is quicker and cheaper to administer and reduce pressure on the courts. A more proportionate level of enforcement action would be one of the main benefits of issuing FPNs. Sentences handed down by Magistrates Courts do not always match the severity of the offence committed. 

Those caught and prosecuted for selling tobacco products and vapes to children should receive significant fines that help to offset the huge costs to councils and ensure they never offend again.

We suggest that in cases where a defendant opts to go to court (which is their right) and loses, it seems logical that in order to encourage the use of FPNs and reduce pressure on the courts, court fines should exceed the maximum FPN available currently set in legislation at £5,000. Such an approach should also take into account costs incurred by the public purse in bringing the case to court including local authority related costs.

Local authority trading standards teams have seen a significant reduction to core budgets over recent years, and continue to face acute staff shortages, whilst also seeing the number of enforcement responsibilities increase through new legislation on a range of different Government priorities. To help trading standards teams in the long term, the LGA continues to call on the Government to boost the future pipeline of qualified trading standards officers through a dedicated apprenticeship fund, investing in regional support networks, and enabling councils to recover more of the costs of running regulatory services. 

Other

We believe that £200 is too low given the lethal nature of tobacco products and the potentially lethal outcome of selling such a product to someone who is underage. The current penalty for selling vapes or tobacco products to an underage person is up to 6 months imprisonment, or a fine of £5,000, or both. We believe a FPN must be set at a similar level to act as a real deterrent with a limited sliding scale used for early payment or for first time offences.

Other

We believe that £200 is too low given the lethal nature of tobacco products and the potentially lethal outcome of selling such a product to someone who is underage.  The current penalty for selling vapes or tobacco products to an underage person is up to 6 months imprisonment, or a fine of £5,000, or both. We believe a FPN must be set at a similar level to act as a real deterrent with a limited sliding scale used for early payment or for first time offences.