When Rishi Sunak called a summer election, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill didn’t make the pile of ‘wash up’ legislation to be rushed through Parliament. His plans for a generational smoking ban, and a crackdown on vapes, were paused. But this was never going to be more than a brief delay.
Labour has used the King’s Speech today to confirm that it will see Sunak’s smoking ban through. Or rather, the party might argue that it’s reclaiming the idea. It was Labour, after all, that floated the policy before the Tories adopted it at their party conference last year.
One day, a 63-year-old will be able to purchase a tobacco product legally while a 62-year-old will not
‘I was shocked when I saw that the Conservative party is nicking the Labour party’s plan for a progressive ban on tobacco,’ Wes Streeting, then-shadow health secretary, wrote in the Yorkshire Post earlier this year. ‘Indeed, when I first floated this proposal, Conservative MPs called it “nanny state” and “an attack on ordinary people and their culture”, and I was accused of “health fascism”.’ Streeting noted that he was ‘delighted’ that so soon after he suggested the idea, the Conservatives tried to implement it.
Sunak will now get his legacy policy, but he’ll share it with Labour. There is no doubt the ban will go through, which will see the legal age to purchase cigarettes rise every year, so no one born after January 2009 can buy them. The Bill also includes a crackdown on vapes, giving ministers power over what flavours are on offer (‘How do I get on that committee?’ one Tory MP quipped to me earlier this year.)
In theory, the Bill covers all tobacco-based products – including cigars – though it was thought the legislation could be watered down under the Tories to allow for some exceptions. That possibility seems less likely now – not least because Labour is happy to embrace the nanny state agenda, with the Prime Minister saying he’d be ‘up for that fight’ at the start of the year.
In addition to resurrecting the smoking ban bill, Labour are also going to put through the ‘junk food’ advert bans the Tories had put on the backburner. Prepare for debates over whether strawberries and cream can be aired before the watershed.
Labour were always going to embrace the nanny state – indeed it was one of the few areas of public policy leading up to the election where the party was crystal clear about its intentions. What’s changed is that the Tories have given the government a free pass to do so. Cries about personal liberty will ring hollow, as it was the last Tory government that ignored legitimate concerns about the role of the state, to push through its own nanny state agenda. The refusal of most Tory MPs to stand up for lifestyle freedom only a few months ago makes it much more difficult to win those arguments now.
But perhaps most worryingly, the Tories have given Labour a new tool for curbing liberty: age-specific bans that create two tiers of consumer rights. That one day a 63-year-old will be able to purchase a tobacco product legally while a 62-year-old will not is not simply absurd: it opens the floodgates for age-specific bans on a whole range of goods or activities that the government of the day declares unholy.
It’s worth noting that several of the leading names speculated to enter a Tory leadership race voted against the second reading of the Bill back in the spring – including Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick. It seems likely that the former government’s support for the nanny state (and indeed the past 14 years of endorsements from the Tories) may be something that pivots under the next Tory leader.
But this will take work, and in the meantime we should expect an even more meddlesome nanny state. This was always Labour’s plan. It was the Tories’ decision to render themselves powerless that was the real surprise.
Comments