MPS ‘fogged’ by influence of vaping industry

Select committee comes under fire for taking evidence largely from e-cigarette supporters

MPS behind a controversial report calling for e-cigarette users to be allowed to vape in public places have been criticised for their links to the industry.

The science and technology committee this week called for a relaxation of regulations surrounding e-cigarettes so they could be licensed, prescribed and advertised.

However, it has emerged that in April the committee chairman, Norman Lamb, spoke at the UK Vaping Industry Association’s (UKVIA) conference, and subsequently allowed the group to address his panel.

A synopsis of the meeting from the UKVIA said Mr Lamb was “so convinced by the arguments raised, he immediately arranged for us to give formal evidence in Parliament a fortnight later”. In November, Mr Lamb was also photographed alongside John Dunne, director of UKVIA, at the launch of a report into vaping from the controversial All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for e-cigarettes.

At the reception – which was a month after the launch of his own inquiry – Mr Lamb said he had been “horrified” when the EU had regulated the vaping product.

The APPG has previously been criticised for taking hospitality from the tobacco and e-cigarette industry.

In September 2015, APPG chairman Mark Pawsey MP accepted tickets worth £1,650 for a Rugby World Cup match from Japan Tobacco International and went on to praise e-cigarettes in the Commons, without declaring the hospitality he had received.

And UKVIA, which represents vaping groups and cigarette companies such as British American Tobacco, is also the secretariat of the APPG. It also emerged that committee member Vicky Ford, the Conservative MP for Chelmsford, visited an ecigwizard factory in 2013 and later tweeted “Thank you @ecigwizard for telling me how #ecigs have helped change lives.” During oral evidence sessions earlier this year, the committee also allowed evidence from the British Vape Trade Association, New Nicotine Alliance, British American Tobacco, Philip Morris Limited and Fontem Ventures, the e-cigarette arm of Imperial Tobacco.

Prof David Thickett, of the Inflammation and Ageing Institute at the University of Birmingham, published research showing e-cigarettes could trigger lung disease earlier this week.

He said: “If the committee only listened to the pro e-cigarette lobby then clearly that isn’t a balanced assessment.”

Public Health England urges smokers to switch to vaping, claiming it is 95 per cent safer than tobacco, but other experts say more research into its longterm safety is needed.

Meanwhile, Mr Lamb has rejected assertions that the committee has a pro-vaping bias and said the panel considered evidence from more than 90 organisations before publishing the report. “I will not allow any vested interest to improperly influence this committee,” he added.

Vaping has come of age, which means it’s now popular enough to attract the attention of politicians. The EU’S instinct is to regulate it. The UK Government’s temptation is to slap a tax on it to raise cash for the NHS. Critics reportedly say that would be counterproductive, because vaping helps so many give up cigarettes, saving billions in the long run. An MPS’ committee now favours letting vaping off the leash: perhaps allowing e-cigarettes to be stronger, advertised freely, even be licensed as a medical product.

There are reasons to be cautious. It’s true that Public Health England says vaping isn’t a gateway to smoking for the young, but it certainly has become fashionable in its own right – and putting the state on the side of vaping could mean endorsing a wealthy commercial enterprise. And while it is generally acknowledged that e-cigarettes are less dangerous than the real thing, we still don’t know the side-effects. If policy-making is to be driven by the science (which seems sensible) then it is best to wait for the science to come in before acting.

Governments should abstain from picking winners or losers. A war on vaping would be an intrusion into the private life of the citizen, plenty of which goes on already. The state tells us what to do on fuel, sugar, alcohol and, of course, standard cigarettes, which have been driven from the public sphere to the detriment of pubs and to the point that many smokers feel persecuted. The state must learn to trust us. The large number of cigarette smokers who have switched to vaping – long before it was trendy or the subject of political debate – demonstrates that, left to their own devices, citizens are perfectly mature enough to make health decisions for themselves.