Wes Streeting
MP for Ilford North · Labour · United Kingdom
“We hope for the best and plan for the worst in terms of the continuation of this war, but we are also actively working to prepare for conditions in which a ceasefire has been agreed by Ukraine, with Ukraine and, from our perspective, for Ukraine.”
“The threats we face are not only evolving; they are getting closer to home. Every day, the UK and our allies encounter espionage, cyber-attacks and military posturing by hostile states.”
“One discipline I have to bring to the Ministry of Defence, drawing on my experience at the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, is to ensure there is no culture of routine overspending, that we are improving productivity, that we deliver value for money and that we recognise that the money we are investing in defence comes wi…”
“With permission, I will make my first statement to the House as Secretary of State for Defence on Ukraine, the ongoing threat from Russia and the Government’s approach. It is not yet clear whether freedom or tyranny will define the 21st century. What is clear is that the United Kingdom will not be a bystander in that struggle.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that very serious and important issue. She will understand that, as a matter of policy, I will not comment on intelligence, but I will address the reports she has raised.”
“We know that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor are both fully committed to funding our nation’s defence, including meeting our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 and setting out an earlier 3% commitment at the next spending review.”
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“That is why it is so grossly irresponsible to change Ministers every five minutes and constantly churn from one face to another, when it is clear to everyone but the Prime Minister that it is not just a change of faces around the Cabinet table that we need, but a change of Government.”
“She is the fifth Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that I have faced in this job in less than two years, although, to be fair, two of those appointments were the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay). The Government said they would make “Long-term decisions for a brighter future”, but they cannot even deliver a long-term Secretary of State for Health. We know where the Secretary of State is—she will be in the Department being briefed about the challenges of the job and being brought up to speed. No doubt she and new Ministers will want to review the decisions she is inheriting and to start to think afresh about whether she wants to proceed with those decisions as they have been working through the machine.”
“That is before we even begin to take into account his record of ushering in the “golden” age between Britain and China; taking 20,000 police officers off our streets; and having food bank Britain leave more than 1 million people dependent on charity to feed themselves and their families. That is Lord Cameron’s legacy and as the current Prime Minister admits, “some mistakes were made”. Who is he trying to kid when he tells us that this recycled Conservative Government offer the change our country needs? I would welcome the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) to her position, but of course she is not here this afternoon, having just been appointed earlier today.”
“May I offer my sympathies to the Conservative Members who did not get the call from No. 10 today? What kind of message does it send to their constituents that their own party leader cannot find a suitable candidate for Foreign Secretary among the 350 Conservative MPs who sit in this House? The arsonist has today returned to the fire, because when it comes to the national health service, Lord Cameron has quite a lot to answer for as the architect of austerity and the biggest top-down reorganisation in the history of the NHS—a £3 billion disaster that has led straight to the biggest crisis in the history of the NHS.”
“At a time when patients cannot get a doctor’s appointment, families are struggling to pay the mortgage and major conflicts are having an impact on our economy and security, the Prime Minister has spent the past five days deciding whether to sack his Home Secretary for publicly disobeying him, undermining the police and inflaming tensions on our streets. Finally, having had the sheer poor judgment to have appointed someone to such high office when she had already been forced to resign for a serious national security leak, he has summoned up the guts to sack the worst Home Secretary in history. Yet, as we see, the merry-go-round of the Conservative clown show continues. After 13 years, the Conservatives have run out of names at the bottom of the barrel, so they are starting all over again.”
“I congratulate the Minister on being the great survivor of the Department of Health and Social Care. She must surely be due a carriage clock or the long service medal by now. The only long-term decision for a brighter future seems to be that she is still in her place, although she did not offer much of a brighter future. More positively, I see far more than one nervous face on the Government Benches—I see lots of nervous faces among those contemplating the next general election—but one is undoubtedly that of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell). I congratulate him on his election and wish him well for his maiden speech, which I can confidently say will be the best speech we hear from those on the Conservative Benches all day.”
“We will deliver 700,000 more urgent appointments a year, recruit dentists to the areas most in need, introduce supervised toothbrushing in schools to prevent children’s teeth from rotting, and reform the NHS dental contract so that everyone who needs an NHS dentist can get one—”
“If people want to know what the future of the NHS would look like with five more years of the Conservative Government, they need only look at the ghost of Christmas past in NHS dentistry. The Conservatives blame the previous Labour Government, but they have been in power for 13 years. In 2010, we stood on a manifesto committed to reforming the NHS dental contract. They have had 13 years to do it, and they have failed again and again, leaving us in the situation that we are in today, with Dickensian stories of desperate people performing DIY dentistry and tooth decay being the most common cause of children aged six to 10 being admitted to hospital. It did not need to be this way. I say to the new Secretary of State and her team that she may not have a plan, but Labour does, and she is more than welcome to nick it.”
“Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for Harborough (Neil O’Brien). As the hon. Member for Harborough departs Government, I hope that he does not take with him his pledge to bring forward a recovery plan for NHS dental services. It has been seven months since he announced that such a plan would be forthcoming, yet it is now nowhere to be seen. Indeed, last week, integrated care systems were given permission to raid their dentistry budget underspends and to remove the ringfence. That follows a pilot in Cornwall, trialling making NHS dentistry available only to children and the most vulnerable. It is the managed decline of NHS dentistry before our eyes.”
“It is job done and time to give someone else a chance.” I am afraid that that is why these Conservatives are so out of touch and will struggle at the next general election if their message to the country is that it has never had it so good. Furthermore, unlike this Government, who crashed the economy in the most reckless way, we will pay for our policies, making sure that they are fully costed and fully funded—in this case, by ending tax breaks for private schools and private equity fund managers. Politics is about choices: Labour chooses the wellbeing of the many, not the interests of the few, and we will fight the election on those lines any time. I say call the election tomorrow, because we are ready. When it comes to dentistry, I should also say farewell to two former Ministers, the hon.”
“Labour will not only reform the Mental Health Act in our first King’s Speech, but recruit thousands more mental health professionals, provide hubs in every community, and set up mental health support in every school, so that young people can get the help they need when they need it. [Interruption.] The Minister says that they have done that. What planet is she living on? This is the problem with these Ministers. Even when the faces change, the lines remain the same. The Minister has not changed, but she is still reading from the same failed script. This is the problem with the Conservative party. Its message to the country is simple: “You have never had it so good. Everything is going really well. The reason we are churning all the Ministers in our Cabinet is that they are doing such a good job.”
“The treatment of people with learning disabilities and autism under the current Act shames our society. The disproportionate impact on black people, who are four times more likely to be sectioned than white people, is appalling. Prisons and police cells are no place for people with mental ill-health. Surely that is not controversial in 2023. It is, as the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), said, “a burning injustice”. I cannot understand why the Government have broken their promise to address that matter finally. It is long past time that mental health was treated with the same seriousness as physical health.”
“Strikes are crippling the NHS and they are putting patients in harm’s way. Her predecessor may have thought that they were a useful excuse for his failure, but they were, and are, a misery for patients and staff alike. The Government must stop the scapegoating of NHS staff, go into these negotiations with good faith, work at finding a solution, and, finally, bring these strikes to an end. There will be no progress on turning around our national health service until the Government make some progress. When summing up I hope the Minister will explain why action was not taken on the Mental Health Act 2007, because, I am afraid, the Minister’s opening remarks were entirely unsatisfactory. The Bill has gone through Committee. It has cross-party support. It is ready to go, so where is it?”
“The Conservative party looks at the health service and concludes that we need to sack more doctors and nurses. The Government are saying that public servants should be sacked for failing to provide minimum standards on strike days, but the Government have not met the four-hour A&E standard since 2015; they have not met the standard for treatment within 18 weeks since 2016; and they were doing so badly on meeting cancer waiting time standards that they have simply got rid of the standards altogether. If the Conservatives are proposing to sack doctors and nurses for failing to provide minimum service levels, can we now sack Ministers for failing to meet minimum standards on non-strike days? The new Health and Social Care Secretary has an opportunity to break with the past year.”
“Well, they can now make their considered and nuanced views known to the new Secretary of State—I am sure she is looking forward to receiving them. It just demonstrates that where Labour leads, the Government follow. The Prime Minister may be too weak to whip his Back Benchers to vote that crucial measure through, but on the Opposition Benches we will put country first and party second. Labour MPs will go through the voting Lobby and make sure that the legislation is passed, so that young people today are even less likely to smoke than they are to vote Conservative. I am afraid to disappoint the Government, but we will not be supporting the other Bill in the King’s Speech that relates to health. Most people look at the crisis in the NHS and think it needs more doctors and nurses.”
“It was the longest King’s Speech in almost a decade, with the fewest Bills. Does that not just sum up the modern Conservative party? Plenty of slogans, but no solutions. What we got was a Bill that will not come into effect until after the general election and a sack-the-nurses Bill. On the tobacco and vapes Bill, the question is not whether Labour will support it, but whether the Conservative party will support it. Government Members will remember that I first proposed that smoking ban back in January. I say they will remember, because they made their feelings known in newspapers at the time. They called it “nanny state” and “an attack on ordinary people and their culture”. They accused me of “health fascism”.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. As I make progress through my speech I will come back to the breath-taking complacency about mental health we heard from the Minister a moment ago. Given the scale of the crisis and given that the Prime Minister has made fixing waiting lists one his five priorities, hon. Members might have expected something in the King’s Speech to deal with it. Instead, we got nothing on the NHS as it heads into its most challenging winter yet and we got nothing on social care, just kicking the can down the road and delaying reforms until after the election. There was nothing on dentistry, despite even Conservative Back Benchers crying out for a rescue plan, and nothing on mental health, despite the Conservative party committing to reform, not just in its last manifesto but in its last two manifestos.”
“At the same time, an extra funding pot was announced, so we are literally paying more and getting less. No wonder the NHS is in such a state. No wonder waiting lists have trebled since 2010. No wonder hundreds of thousands more patients are waiting for treatment today than when the Prime Minister first made his pledge.”
“The Minister says, “Is that it?”. It is 700,000 more NHS dentistry appointments than her Government are providing. It is ridiculous. The extent to which Ministers continue to parrot these ridiculous lines is embarrassing. If they want to intervene, make my day. I am perfectly prepared to confront any Member with their own Government’s record. Of course, they do not want to defend the Government’s record; they have a hard enough time doing that on the doorstep. Turning back to His Majesty’s Gracious Speech, there may not have been any Bills for the health service last week, but we did see the white flag being waved on the Prime Minister’s pledge to cut waiting lists. Hospitals received a letter telling them to cut the number of operations and appointments they are aiming to offer this year.”
“To those who say that that cannot be done and that things cannot be better, I say this: the last Labour Government delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history. We did it before and we will do it again. It is not a change of faces we need but a change of Government. It is time to call a general election and give the British people the choice: more of the same with the Conservatives or a fresh start with Labour. Call a general election now, so that Labour can give Britain its future back.”
“Only Labour has a plan to get the NHS back on its feet and make that vision a reality: a plan to cut waiting lists, delivering 2 million more appointments a year; a rescue plan for NHS dentistry, delivering 700,000 more appointments, recruiting dentists to the areas most in need, introducing toothbrushing for three to five-year-olds in schools and having an NHS dentist for all who need one; a plan to double the number of scanners so that patients are diagnosed earlier; a plan to recover our nation’s mental health from the damage of lockdowns; a plan to cut red tape that ties up GPs’ time, so that we can bring back the family doctor; a plan for the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history—a plan so good that the Government adopted it and gave us a head start; and a plan to reform the NHS to make it fit for the future.”
“Labour has a different vision for our country in which no one fears ill health or old age; people have power, choice and control over their own health and care; the place people are born, or the wealth they are born into, does not determine how long they will live or how happy their lives will be; patients benefit from the brightest minds developing cutting-edge treatments and technology; and children born in Britain today become the healthiest generation that ever lived.”
“The future of the NHS after another five years of the Tories is emerging before our eyes: a two-tier health service, where those who can afford it go private, and those who cannot are left waiting behind—our NHS reduced to a poor service for poor people; our country viewed as the sick man of Europe. It does not have to be that way. The Prime Minister was right when he said, “It’s time for a change”, but only Labour can deliver it.”
“We have an analogue system in a digital age. We have a sickness service, not a health service, with too many lives hampered by preventable illness and too many lives lost to the biggest killers. It could not be clearer: the longer we give the Conservatives in power, the longer patients will wait. This was an empty King’s Speech from a Government who have run out of road, run out of steam and run out of ideas; a Conservative party too busy tearing itself apart to govern the country; a Prime Minister who cannot decide whether it is time for a change or to go back to year zero.”
“They did not groan when taxes went up on working people. They did not groan when benefits were cut for the poorest people. We know who the Conservatives are in it for. They are in it for the few; we champion the interests of the many. That is the Labour difference. We believe strongly that people who live or work in Britain should pay their taxes here too. There is still time for the new Secretary of State to lobby the Chancellor ahead of the autumn statement. This genuinely is an oven-ready plan, unlike some of the plans we have heard from the Conservatives, and I encourage the new Secretary of State to nick it. After 13 years, we have an NHS that gets to people too late. We have a hospital-based system geared towards late-stage diagnosis and treatment, which delivers poorer outcomes at greater cost.”
“No family should go through that agony, and I hope that a resolution can be found. The Government and the previous Health Secretary got into the habit of stealing Labour’s policies—I say that not as a complaint, but as an invitation. It is clear that the Government do not have a plan to cut NHS waiting lists, but we do: £1.1 billion will be paid straight into the pockets of hard-pressed NHS staff to deliver 2 million more appointments a year at evenings and weekends, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status, because patients need treatment more than the wealthiest need a tax break— [ Interruption. ] Conservative Members groan when we mention charging non-doms their fair share, they groan when we talk about closing private equity loopholes and they groan when we talk about taxing private schools fairly.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I am deeply concerned about the situation facing children with cystic fibrosis in particular, given that there is radically life-extending treatment available that offers the hope to those young people not just of longer, happier, healthier lives, but of reduced admissions to hospital. It is right that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence makes those judgments in a rigorous way, looking at the evidence. I hope that it will be successful in bringing down the price of those drugs by negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies to make sure that we can get affordable drugs to families who desperately need them and are desperately anxious that the announcement they have read about means shorter lives for their children.”
“To listen to the Secretary of State, you would think it was all going so well, so let me give him a reality check. In Tamworth last year, only a third of patients said it was easy to get through to their doctor on the phone, one in three GP appointments were not conducted face to face and fewer than half of patients were offered a choice of appointment. The Government are not listening to the people of Tamworth. Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to explain to the people of Tamworth why, after 13 years of Conservative Government, this is the case, and better still, adopt Labour’s plan to cut red tape, incentivise continuity of care and bring back the family doctor.”
“In Mid Bedfordshire last year, 165 children— [ Interruption. ] I do not know why Government Members are laughing; perhaps they should listen, as it is not our party that has let down the people of Mid Bedfordshire. Last year, 165 children in Mid Bedfordshire had teeth removed due to tooth decay. Some 800 patients were forced into A&E for the same reason and 100,000 people across the region cannot get access to an NHS dentist. Instead of laughing, the Government might like to adopt Labour’s plan to provide 700,000 extra dentistry appointments every year.”
“It is not just Mid Bedfordshire. Across the country, the No.1 reason children aged six to 10 are admitted to hospital is tooth decay. Given that, will the Secretary of State at least adopt the modest measure that Labour has proposed to introduce national supervised tooth brushing for small children—low cost, high impact—to keep their teeth clean and keep children out of hospital?”
“Finally, I know that I speak for the whole House when I say that the parents of Child A, Child C, Child D, Child E, Child G, Child I, Child O and Child P are constantly in our thoughts, as are the many other families who worry whether their children have also been victims of Lucy Letby. We owe it to them to do what we can to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. As the Government seek to do that, they will have our full support.”
“We must act to prevent further tragedies, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement that his Department is reconsidering Kark’s recommendation 5. Labour is calling for the disbarring of senior managers found guilty of serious misconduct, so I can guarantee him our support if he brings that proposal forward. The Secretary of State should go further. Will he now begin the process of bringing in a regulatory system for NHS management, alongside standards and quality training? Surely we owe it to the families and the staff who were let down by a leadership team at the Countess of Chester Hospital that was simply not fit for purpose.”
“I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that good management is absolutely vital for staff wellbeing, clinical outcomes, efficient services and, most of all, patient safety. The case for change has been made previously. Sir Robert Francis, who led the inquiry into the deaths at Mid Staffs, argued in 2017 that NHS managers should be subject to professional regulation. In 2019, the Kark review, commissioned by the Secretary of State, called for a regulator to maintain a register of NHS executives, with “the power to disbar managers for serious misconduct”. In 2022, the Messenger review commissioned by the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) recommended a single set of core leadership and management standards for managers, with training and development provided to help them meet these standards.”
“Despite several reviews, there is no one who thinks that the system of accountability, of professional standards and of regulation of NHS managers and leaders is good enough. Why were senior leaders at the Countess of Chester Hospital still employed in senior positions in the NHS right up to the point that Lucy Letby was found guilty of murder? The absence of serious regulation means that a revolving door of individuals with a record of poor performance or misconduct can continue to work in the health service. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is simply unacceptable in a public service that takes people’s lives into its hands? The lack of consistent standards is also hampering efforts to improve the quality of management.”
“I ask the Secretary of State, people right across Government and people who hope to be in government to make sure that, in future, in awful cases such as this, families and victims are consulted at the outset. Can he assure the House that the families will continue to be involved in decisions as the inquiry undertakes its work? Mr Speaker, no stone can be left unturned in the search for the lessons that must be learned, but it is already clear that there were deep issues with the culture and leadership at the Countess of Chester Hospital. This is not the first time that whistleblowers working in the NHS have been ignored, when listening to their warnings could have saved lives.”
“The insult of ordering concerned medics to write letters of apology to this serial killer demonstrates the total lack of seriousness with which their allegations were treated. I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has changed the terms of the inquiry and put it on a statutory footing. There must be no hiding place for those responsible for such serious shortcomings. It is welcome that the inquiry will have the full force of the law behind it, as it seeks to paint the full picture of what went wrong at the Countess of Chester Hospital, and it is right that the wishes of the families affected have been listened to. I welcome the fact that they will be involved in the drawing up of the terms of reference.”
“Were it not for the persistent courage of the staff who finally forced the hospital to call in Cheshire police, more babies would have been put at risk. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in recognising Dr Stephen Brearey and Dr Ravi Jayaram, whose bravery has almost certainly saved lives. Blowing the whistle on wrongdoing is never easy, which is why it should not be taken lightly. Indeed, we can judge the health of an institution by the way that it treats its whistleblowers. The refusal to listen, to approach the unexplained deaths of infants with an open mind and to properly investigate the matter when the evidence appeared to be so clear is simply unforgivable.”
“With Cheshire police’s investigation having expanded to cover her entire clinical career, we may not yet know the extent of her crimes. What we do know is that her victims should be starting a new school term today. Our thoughts are with the families who have suffered the worst of traumas, whose pain and suffering we could not possibly imagine, and who will never forget the children cruelly taken from them. We hope that the sentencing helped to bring them some closure, even though the cowardly killer dared not face them in court. I wish to pay tribute to the heroes of this story: the doctors who fought to sound the alarm in the face of hard-headed, stubborn refusal. This murderer should have been stopped months before she was finally suspended.”
“I strongly echo the sentiments of the Secretary of State and thank him for advance sight of his statement. I welcome the appointment of Lady Justice Thirlwall to lead the inquiry into the crimes committed by Lucy Letby, and I strongly welcome his appointment today of Baroness Lampard to lead the statutory review in Essex. I look forward to receiving further updates from the Secretary of State as soon as possible. Turning to the case of Lucy Letby, there are simply no words to describe the evil of the crimes that she committed. They are impossible to fathom. Although she has now been convicted and sentenced to a whole-life order, the truth is that no punishment could possibly fit the severity of the crimes she committed.”
“There are challenges, I know, but what more can be done to make sure that, for families such as my hon. Friend’s and Margaret’s, and for thousands of others each year, glioblastomas are not simply a death sentence?”
“The Minister is aware, I know, of the outstanding campaigning work that my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) is doing, not least because of the experience of her sister—our late great friend Margaret McDonagh—with glioblastomas. Over decades now, we have seen no improvements in outcomes, no drug trials of any seriousness and no mandatory training of oncologists. I have learned through experience that, when the McDonaghs come knocking, it is best to say yes, and if anyone says no, they will be hit by this unstoppable steamroller. With that cautionary note in mind, might the Minister be prepared to meet me, my hon. Friend and relevant stakeholders across the Department, NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to see what more can be done?”
“Last week, the Health Secretary said that he was willing to offer doctors a higher pay rise. Last night, the Chancellor slapped him down, saying that any increased offer will have to be paid for by cuts. How can the Health Secretary negotiate an end to the NHS strikes when he cannot even negotiate with his own Chancellor?”
“But the worst strikes in the history of the NHS are still to come. The impact of the junior doctors’ strikes and the consultants’ strikes will be devastating for patients. The Secretary of State has failed to stop these strikes for seven months. He has lost the confidence of nurses, radiologists, junior doctors and consultants, and he cannot even successfully negotiate with his Chancellor, so what is his plan to stop these strikes going ahead?”
“This would come alongside work with councils to improve access to e-cigarettes as a stop-smoking aid, and a clamp- down on the pervasive myths peddled by the tobacco industry that smoking reduces stress and anxiety. That is Labour’s plan to build a healthier society; that is Labour putting the vaping industry on notice that we will not sit idly by and allow a generation of young people to become addicted to nicotine. Where is the Government’s plan?”
“Cancer Research UK also estimates that, on current trends, smoking will cause one million cancer cases by 2040. What are the Government planning to do to get us back on track? What has happened to the Government’s tobacco control plan, which was promised in December 2021? Prevention is better than cure, so the next Labour Government will shift the NHS from being a service focused only on treating sickness to one that prevents ill health in the first place, because that approach is better for patients and less expensive for the taxpayer. We would make all hospital trusts integrate smoking cessation interventions into routine care and we would expect every trust to have a named lead on smoking cessation.”
“Labour tabled an amendment to the Health and Care Act 2022 to ban the marketing of vapes to under-18s, and it was Conservative Members who voted it down. I hope that Ministers have had a genuine change of heart, but either way there will be action on this issue after the general election. The next Labour Government will come down like a ton of bricks on companies pushing nicotine to children and we will ban the branding and advertising of vapes to children. I want to press the Minister on the Government’s progress towards their Smokefree 2030 target, which Cancer Research UK estimates they are set to miss by nine years. That will result in thousands of additional deaths due to the health impacts of tobacco and pile more and more pressure on an already overburdened national health service.”
“One girl who started vaping while she was at school told the BBC last week that she has: “no control over it. I start to get shaky and it’s almost all I can think of.” I have seen some people warning of a “moral panic” about under-age vaping, but children who are addicted to a drug are unable to focus in the classroom, and it affects their behaviour in other ways, too. We cannot sit back and allow a new generation of kids to get hooked on nicotine. I recognise that this concern is shared by Members across the House, but I have to say that it is hard to swallow the comments of Ministers, including the Prime Minister, who try to grab headlines today by promising a crackdown on under-age vaping at some time in the future, because they had a chance to vote for such a crackdown two years ago.”
“I personally have heard horrifying stories about the extent of their promotion on popular social media platforms, where children are able to buy them with ease, although, frankly, they can also chance their arm quite successfully on our high streets. The effects of these products should seriously trouble us all. Teachers have to monitor toilets in schools where children congregate to vape; children make up excuses to leave their classroom in order to satisfy their nicotine cravings; and children in primary school, aged nine or younger, end up in hospital because of the impact of vaping. Paediatric chest physicians report that children are being put in intensive care units for conditions such as lung bleeding, lung collapse and lungs filling up with fat.”
“If someone walks down pretty much any high street in our country today, they will be able to buy brightly coloured vapes and e-liquids with names such as Vimto Breeze, Mango Ice, or indeed Unicorns. There is no doubt that these products are being designed, packaged, marketed and sold deliberately to children. It is no wonder that there has been an explosion of under-age vaping in recent years. Action on Smoking and Health estimates that in just the last three years, under-age vaping has increased by 50%, which shows that the vast majority of kids are being exposed to e-cigarette promotions. In this debate today, we have heard about the impact of illicit goods and the harmful substances that many of these products, which are often sold to children, contain.”
“As Dr Javed Khan highlighted in his 2030 smokefree review, if we want to create a smokefree Britain, using vapes and other smoking cessation aids will be essential in reaching that ambition, but we should be under no illusion: although vapes are unquestionably less harmful than cigarettes, they are none the less harmful products. I share the deep concerns that Members have expressed about the impact that the vaping industry is having on children, because it is not targeting children to get them off cigarettes, but to get them on nicotine. I do not care what the industry leaders told the Health and Social Care Committee yesterday; frankly, they are insulting the public’s intelligence.”