Jack Rankin
MP for Windsor · Conservative · United Kingdom
“It is a disgrace that hundreds of prisoners have been released in error under this Government, but more concerning are the thousands it will have been an error to release early. The Secretary of State did not answer the previous question, so let’s try another.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the Minister for introducing the debate. His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition will support the regulations.”
“Q5. The first duty of His Majesty’s Government, and indeed the Prime Minister’s first duty, is the defence of the realm. The Prime Minister is not responsible for the worsening geopolitical situation, but he is responsible for this country’s reaction to it.”
“Just as we must stop unnecessarily pushing young people into courses that offer minimal face-to-face teaching, in return for huge debt and little prospect of employment at the end, we must ensure that new modular courses and training opportunities deliver the highest-quality provision possible.”
“I would like to press the Minister on the importance of face-to-face teaching time. If we want to tackle low-quality provision and ensure that the lifelong learning entitlement lives up to our hopes, we must ensure that learners receive the highest-quality teaching possible.”
“Secondly, given that providers will occur familiarisation and administrative costs as the changes are implemented, and in the light of the wider financial pressures facing the higher education sector, what support will be available to help minimise those burdens? The Opposition support the regulations.”
The complete record
Every one of 539 lines we hold for Jack Rankin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 10 of 11.
“I do not think that nicotine products are attractive to children in any way, shape or form today. My concern is that, as the Government are seeking to stop children using them by restricting them in vending machines—I do not think they should be using them—”
“It might be sensible, in the interest of broader public health, to have such a vending machine. If the Government are concerned about evidence and balance, those are exactly the kinds of voices they should be listening to, and they should accept the amendment, which is very much in line with their intent.”
“I mean the former: nicotine patches and gum. The stated intention of the Bill, supported by the House on Second Reading, is to move to a smokefree generation, so it would seem sensible to make nicotine products pretty widely accessible, in so far as they do not attract children. We should largely welcome a vending machine selling nicotine patches or gum if the intention is to move to a smokefree generation. I do not think the Government have the evidence and the balance quite right on that point, so I cannot support clause 12 as it is currently written. I would make a similar case in support of the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. She has read to us evidence from a relevant professional, who has a legitimate concern.”
“I do not think I can talk to that point, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for making it. We have to find a balance. The Government can use their majority in the House to cast aside my hon. Friend’s amendment, but it seems to me that it is in line with the principle of the Bill, so it is a sensible thing to do.”
“I had not heard that remark, but I thank my hon. Friend for putting it on the record. To add to that theme, I would make the point that these things are multifaceted. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire, who is the successor to Dame Andrea, was making is that people have quite a lot to be getting on with, so they do not need this added stress.”
“Perhaps it is an added thing that doctors in mental healthcare can try to address, but my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire read out a letter from someone at the coalface, who takes the opposite approach from that of the shadow Minister.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I agree with everything she has just said. I will just finish my remarks to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. She talked about this measure being a further opportunity; I would suggest that the easy availability of nicotine products in certain instances would be an aid on that journey. We should be working pragmatically on amendments such as this in Committee, to ensure that the evidence is considered and that the right balance is struck. I will support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. Because the nicotine product vending machine measure is part of clause 12, I will vote against clause 12 stand part.”
“My hon. Friend is making an eloquent case that we should not be advertising vapes, or their pricing and products, to children. What she is not doing is making a case for banning the display of products or prices of vapes to adults. Does she think it is incongruous to treat tobacco products and vaping products in the same way in this clause?”
“I suggest to my hon. Friend that advertising a vape with Mickey Mouse is obviously aimed at a child, but it would be very much aimed at an adult, and not attractive to a child at all, to advertise a vape with, “This is what smoking 40 cigarettes a day costs you over a year. This is what our product costs. This is what you would save.” That would very much be in line with the aims of a smoke-free generation.”
“VPZ did not benefit directly, because it did not think it should be doing so from a public source, but it passed that saving on, and I suppose that counts as a discount on a product. I might contend to the Minister that that is exactly the kind of thing we want responsible, legitimate vaping companies to do. I understand that he wants, through this mechanism, to strictly limit advertising to, and targeting of, children and new vapers, but—”
“We do not want to create new vapers, but vaping is a powerful tool to realise the aim of a smoke-free generation. As with most products, it is possible to promote price savings in a responsible way. We have received a huge weight of correspondence on this topic and I cannot say that I have had the time to read everything that has come across our desks, but I read the letter from VPZ, which I understand is a vaping company. It talked about its partnership with the NHS in Essex, which had put out to tender for a process to help people successfully quit. There was a £55 voucher from the NHS associated with that partnership. As I understand the letter—perhaps the Minister knows more about this than I do—VPZ used that voucher to offer a cashback scheme such that that money came off the price of vapes.”
“I have supported the Government so far on the principle of not allowing under-18s to vape, but I am concerned that, as we get to these clauses relating to distribution and discount—we have just talked about display, and I will not talk about flavours and marketing in depth, because I know they will come later—we are at risk of moving away from the evidence, and from the balanced approach that the Minister talked about when he delineated between vaping and tobacco. These clauses give quite wide scope to Ministers on all of these products together, but I think the products should be treated differently. There should be scope for legitimate, responsible vaping companies to offer free distribution and discount of products, in aid of the Government’s stated aim.”
“It will not surprise my hon. Friend that I do not agree with him. The last thing we need is more people going through our GP surgeries. We should allow legitimate use of these discounts in a public health manner. Some of the problems I have with the structure of some of the clauses from here on in is that they give quite sweeping regulatory power to Ministers, perhaps through secondary legislation. The Minister might say that the Government do not necessarily want to restrict those things, but the lack of certainty may result in a chilling of investment by legitimate vaping companies. If we want genuinely to move to a smoke-free generation, I do not think that is something we should encourage; we should be advocating such responsible investment.”
“I take the shadow Minister’s point, but I think the Minister said in summing up the clause 10 stand part debate that while vaping potentially was not harm-free, given its harm compared with cigarettes, that was something that the Government would want to see. Clause 15 does not say that there should not be discounts on products for children or products for recreational use; it leaves the scope quite broad. I think the Government have got that wrong, and that it might have a direct adverse effect on the kinds of partnerships I described. I saw some polling recently that showed that the general public thought vaping was as dangerous as smoking, and this is the kind of messaging that gives that wrong impression, which is against the Government’s stated aim. Ordered , That the debate be now adjourned.— ( Taiwo Owatemi . )”
“16. What estimate her Department has made of the potential impact of levels of net migration on future trends in the number of people who will be granted indefinite leave to remain.”
“The mass import of low-skilled workers could cost the taxpayer more than £61 billion—a financial ticking time bomb. Will the Minister commit here and now to extending the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain or bringing in new qualifying criteria?”
“However, I recognise the argument of both the previous Government and the new Government that smoking is fundamentally incredibly bad for somebody, so stopping people taking it up in the first place is in the realm of public health. In particular, even though the legal age is 18, we have people aged 15, 16 and 17 taking up smoking. One thing that the Bill setting the age at 25 might do is to stop those people at those ages from picking up a very bad habit indeed. On this batch of amendments in particular, I am trying to weigh up the removal of those rights of that seven years, set against whether we need such a draconian ban that we stop all adults smoking in the future. I have come to the conclusion, listening to the earlier debate under the chairmanship of Sir Roger Gale, that on balance I would support these amendments.”
“My concern with the principle of clause 1—I know we are not talking about the principle at the moment—is that it creates two tiers of adults, but the generational ban will work its way through and, by the time that generation passes, you will have created one tier of adults again, so my principal objection works its way through. This batch of amendments would keep that static. Yes, you would have two tiers of adults, because you would have people under 25 and people over 25, but you would not be infringing the right of the majority of people to go about smoking tobacco products throughout their lives. My general view of the Bill is that the generational smoking ban is the state overstepping the mark from public health into infringing personal liberty.”
“The generational ban does not remove any individual’s rights to buy cigarettes, because at the moment the people who would be prevented from buying cigarettes and other tobacco products cannot do so; their rights are not changed, but rather prevented from ever kicking in. These amendments move instead to a system whereby the legal age is changed such that it is 25 rather than 18. That will remove the right to smoke from seven years’ worth of people. Smoking has become a lot less prevalent among younger people, but there are seven years’ worth of people, aged 18 to 25, who can smoke at the moment, so if you passed this batch of amendments as they are, you would have seven years’ worth of people who effectively do have rights individually removed from them. However, that must be set against what you do to the collective.”
“The stated aims of the Bill are really quite clear: as the previous Government and the new Government decided, it is a generational smoking ban, such that anybody who turns 18 after 1 January 2009 is prevented from ever purchasing tobacco in many different shapes and forms; I think that means people who have just turned 16, as we have just had a change of year, will be prevented from ever doing it. The batch of amendments that have been grouped together effectively undermine the fundamental nature of what the Bill is trying to achieve. Instead of moving to an incremental generational ban, it moves to a different system that alters the age at which tobacco products can be sold to someone, and does so on an indefinite basis.”
“I take the Minister’s point, but there is the potential throughout the Bill for double standards. He talks about addiction—I disagree with him, but it is a perfectly reasonable point to make—but the same could be true of gambling or alcohol. We allow, for example, gamblers to advertise on football shirts. So if the Minister takes the logic of his argument all the way through to its necessary end conclusion, then this Government must be legislating for all those addictive social things that are incredibly damaging as well.”
“I take the Minister’s point somewhat, but I think that there is a conflation of argument here about cigarettes and tobacco. If I may say so, the Minister alternated somewhat between the two. That may be the case with cigarettes; I have never been a smoker of cigarettes, but on new year’s eve I had a big cigar with my dad and brother, and the last one I had with them before that was at my brother’s 30th. I think that was a safe and pleasurable thing to do, and something that the state should not be infringing on. It is not just cigarettes that the Government are going after—it is all tobacco products.”
“Yes. Amendment proposed : 18, in clause 1, page 1, line 13, leave out “shown on that document was before 1 January 2009” and insert “showed that the purchaser was not under the age of 25”.— (Jack Rankin.) This amendment is linked to Amendment 17. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“Forgive me for my ignorance, but could my hon. Friend illustrate what levels 3 and 4 mean in practice and how they might read across to similar products, such as alcohol, so we can have some context for what she proposes?”
“My hon. Friend might best be able to provide clarification. Perhaps I have misunderstood, perhaps this is a mistake or perhaps it is deliberate. I understand why each jurisdiction of the United Kingdom has to be taken separately, but do I understand correctly that in clause 68, which covers Northern Ireland, the suggestion is that it should be a level 5 offence, whereas in clause 1, which covers England, the suggestion is it should be a level 4 offence, and my hon. Friend is seeking an amendment to make it a level 3 offence in the first instance? Why would that offence be a different level in different parts of the United Kingdom? The Minister is frowning.”
“It is the top of page 36. As I understand it, clause 68 makes the sale of tobacco a level 5 offence in Northern Ireland, and my hon. Friend is seeking to make the first offence a level 3 offence, but on page 1, clause 1(4) makes the sale of tobacco a level 4 offence. It seems that there is a an inequity there, which perhaps is deliberate or perhaps I have misunderstood. I support her opinion, but it seems that there is a difference between the different nations of the United Kingdom and I do not understand why that is the case.”
“I support my hon. Friend on the principle, which we see in other legislation, but the point about children is important. Shopkeepers are used to the concept of Challenge 25 for people over 18, and this starts in that way, but given how the legislation is designed, we will soon get to the cut-off for smokers being in their early 30s. Shopkeepers will not be used to challenging someone who is 32 in the same way, as part of a Challenge 37 policy or whatever. There needs to be an acceptance. In 10 years’ time, we will not see selling cigarettes to a 32-year-old—I have not got my sums right, but I just want to illustrate the point—in the same way as we see selling cigarettes to a 17-year-old today. There should be a recognition of that when it comes—”
“I take the point my hon. Friend is quite eloquently making, but might I suggest to her that times have very much changed: the advertising that she has talked about has long since been restricted, the idea that smoking is seen in that same way and is prevalent throughout society is no longer true, and perhaps the arguments she is making are not as relevant today as they might have been in the past?”
“I will just expand the point a little bit. My understanding of heated tobacco, for example—my hon. Friend is a medical professional, so she may take a different view—is that where it has been introduced en masse, such as in Japan, there has been a 70% fall in cigarette sales. If we are talking about a smoke-free generation, and the health benefits that she and Government Members are talking about, is banning all tobacco products necessarily the right way to go about that?”
“I will just expand on that point a little. The United Kingdom is something like the third biggest tourist destination in the world. Forgive my ignorance—there is a lot of paperwork here—but obviously we are trying to make the sale of tobacco and the distribution to others of tobacco illegal in the UK, and I have not seen a clause in the Bill that would make bringing cigarettes into the country for one’s own use illegal. Maybe the Minister will correct me on that. We obviously have a tourism issue in that regard, but I was also thinking about when G7 leaders come to the UK. President Obama was famously a smoker. Will the United Kingdom not be able to host a G7 event, which is obviously of massive significance, if there is a leader of the free world who smokes? Their attendance might be vetoed.”
“One thing that will be particularly operationally difficult is the period of time during which those on the shop floor may not be able to use cigarettes themselves, but they will not be prohibited from selling cigarettes. An 18-year-old shop worker might be asked to adjudicate whether someone is 33 or 34. In such instances, training might be really quite important.”
“That is why, despite sharing with the Government the aim of moving to a cigarette-free generation, I do not think I can quite get over the principle of what they are doing to civil liberties in this Bill. We are on the journey to a cigarette-free generation anyway, so why would they need to use—I do not mean this in an incendiary way, although they might take it that way—quite draconian powers? I would say that that is what this is.”
“The Minister, the shadow Minister and Members from across the Committee have made eloquent contributions about the damage that smoking cigarettes does to people over many years. It clearly should be a priority of a Government of any colour to reduce cigarette smoking significantly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon eloquently said, we have made significant progress on that. Yes, there has been legislation, but the change has also been cultural. The legislation has been important. Government Members made the point to me earlier that some of the arguments I have used I might have used against previous legislation that sought to put barriers between people and smoking. But the cultural element that my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon talked about is deeply embedded in most young people today.”
“Judging from the tone of debate so far, I might be the most sceptical about the principle of clauses 1, 50 and 68, and I appreciate that perhaps I am in the minority. I will talk to what I see as the principle of those clauses and put on the record where I agree with the Minister and the shadow Minister. I will also give international examples that we should bear in mind, particularly in relation to the scope of “tobacco products”, which I think is wrong in these clauses. We talk about a smoke-free generation. If we were to tweak that slightly and call it a “cigarette-free generation”, I would share the aim of the Government and the previous Government; that is laudable pretty much every which way.”
“Very simply, in the future, we will create two tiers of adults. Those people are children today, and it is right that in law we prohibit them from smoking, because they cannot make these responsible decisions, but once someone passes the age of 18, we as a society, generally speaking, accept that if they want to make bad choices, they are their bad choices.”
“That is where I would go, in principle. I think that if we go beyond that point, we are starting to make a moral decision on behalf of others.”
“I take the Minister’s point that in a society in which we are looked after by our NHS, to which we all contribute, which is free at the point of use and which I am sure all of us across the House support, when someone smokes and creates a burden on society through health or social care, that is the responsibility of us all. Where I think the difference lies is where we make a moral choice. I have heard different figures for the cost from cigarettes. There are different studies. I have heard numbers as low as £20 billion, but I think that today the Minister used £80 billion when talking about productivity. I think that should be calculated properly and appropriately with evidence, but if that is the cost, that is what we should levy in excise duty, at which point the people who impose that burden are the people paying it.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very reasonable point, but there is not a single adult in this country who does not know how bad cigarettes are for them. It is an important function of Government to make that educational point. Governments of all colours have made it systematically, and it has massively changed the way people, including the new generation, perceive cigarettes. That education battle has been won. Once we have won that game, which I think we have, and once we have no longer socialised the healthcare cost to others, which is what I suggest cigarette duty should be doing, we are starting to make moral choices on behalf of others.”
“I take the hon. Member’s point. I understand that cigarettes are obviously incredibly addictive, but I think we can exercise that point too far. People who smoke have agency to stop; it might be difficult, but they can, should they choose to.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his point. Forgive me if I did say it was easy, but I try to pick my words carefully, and I do not think I did say that. I said they had agency, and that is a different point. Linked to that is the fact that too often—not just on this issue—we talk about waving our magic wand with legislation to make things illegal. But that is not the way that the world works. I am concerned that there is the potential, with draconian legislation such as this, to exacerbate the illicit trade in tobacco, which will reduce the effectiveness of the regulations and the public health messages.”
“Does the Minister perhaps not see the difficulty with the fact that we will be out of international lockstep with everybody? My understanding is that both New Zealand and Malaysia introduced a generational ban policy, and both have been repealed.”
“I am well aware that that is the case. Part of the reason for that change in Government—although I do not want to overplay the significance of this singular issue—was that the incoming Government made an argument about the practicalities of enforcing such a law. Frankly, that is a significant concern of mine.”
“However, there is an under-spoken truth about being a leader, and perhaps being first. Clearly, the Minister is passionate about the issue, as is clear in not just what he says, but how he says it; he wants the United Kingdom to lead on this, and I am sure he will be as forceful as possible. But a leader is also a warning if they do not succeed. If we make moves that are too draconian, too quick or over-eager on energy, and we get it wrong, that could mean blackouts. If that happens because we have taken an aggressive approach, no one will follow us. We will be a warning. For leaders, it goes both ways.”
“I sympathise with what the Minister says about the world wanting us to make it work. I will make an analogy that I think is directly relevant. My expertise before joining this House was in renewables development. The United Kingdom, particularly under this Government, has been quite aggressive on renewables; the Conservative party was quite aggressive on them too, and the new Government have come in, continued those policies and been more aggressive. The Government are clear that they want to be world leaders, but in the past week the United Kingdom was incredibly close to blackouts. If you are a leader and you do something successfully, whether on renewables or cigarettes, you may well lead the world forward, and the Minister is right to say that other countries would want to follow us on this issue.”
“I thank the Minister for his passionate remarks, which I am obviously not going to take lying down. I agree wholeheartedly that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the greatest country in the world, but before I try to make some progress, I might humbly suggest to him that a lot of that greatness may be based on the primacy of the individual and our rights to get on with our lives.”
“I recognise the hon. Lady’s passionate belief in equality, but I find that somewhat paternalistic and somewhat—I do not mean this dismissively—condescending. Poorer people have the same agency as anybody else. That is the point.”
“To achieve the smoke-free future we all want, the UK must move in an evidence-based way that differentiates clearly between various smoke-free products and traditional cigarettes, because I do not think the current approach has necessarily been justified. We need to exclude reduced-risk products from the generational ban, which will help minimise confusion and encourage smokers to switch to less harmful alternatives.”
“The definition should not include recreational products that do not have the same hook as cigarettes. I do not feel the need to have a cigar on January 8 because I had one on 31 December. There is also a degree of puritanism to having the widest possible scope of tobacco product. I mentioned heated tobacco earlier. Although I know it has negative health effects, I understand that the data shows that to be significantly less than for cigarettes. Heated tobacco could be used as a cessation device, so the heavy-handed approach here might be overdoing it. In the same way, I would be interested in how the Minister thinks about nicotine patches.”
“I will move, then, to tobacco products, the definition of which is in clauses 1, 50 and 68—forgive me that digression, Mr Dowd, but I got blown off course a little by some Labour Members. I made a differentiation between smoke-free and cigarette-free. All the arguments I have heard about the hugely detrimental nature and health challenges of a life of smoking pertain, in the majority, to cigarettes. I find the widest possible definition of tobacco products to be unnecessary. I have made the point about recreational cigars. The Minister said that there was no safe level of consuming tobacco, but I would suggest that an adult can make a perfectly reasonable choice to, once a year, have a couple of cigars. Yes, there will be detrimental health effects, but an adult in a reasonable country should be able to make that choice.”
“My hon. Friend knows that we disagree on the principle of clause 1, and my objection is primarily to creating two tiers of adults. One of the benefits of the Bill, as it is currently written, is that it is at least a time-limited measure. In other words, when that generation dies out, every adult will be one tier again. With amendment 17, however, we will effectively have two tiers of adults forever, so a 19-year-old will always—or until we change the law again—be able to drink but will not be able to smoke, and that will be set in stone. Does my hon. Friend agree that, even if she thinks we should create two tiers of adults for public health purposes, we should try to delimit that as much as possible, and therefore the principle of the amendment should not be accepted by this Committee?”