Speeches by Johnson.

“I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. I understand that he is sympathetic. I know that he is going to go like the clappers; “going like the clappers” is apparently an RAF phrase, but I doubt that he is going as fast as a Tornado jet or a Typhoon—[Interruption.] Maybe he will: he is indicating that he might.”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. New clause 5 was tabled by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon), who is not on the Committee, and addresses an important issue that is causing me huge concern as well: that of nicotine pouches. We have heard repeatedly in this Com…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that important intervention. He is absolutely right that these items are a huge danger to the environment, and it is sad when we go to parts of our world that are still not well explored, such as the Mariana trench, and find evidence of damage caused by the human race, such as plastic pol…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her explanation, which was really helpful. I am grateful that she, as a Labour MP, understands that a tax on business will be passed on to the consumer, because it seems that the Chancellor does not. Perhaps the hon. Lady should apply for a new job. The hon. Lady is right that if taxes are app…”

“Is the Minister aware of any retailers on the parliamentary estate at the moment that actually do sell any tobacco or cigarette products?”

“This is an interesting clause, because it applies the Bill to the parliamentary estate. According to Erskine May, there has been some confusion about whether statute law can apply inside the parliamentary estate, because of the principle of exclusive cognisance. That means that Parliament has control over its own inter…”

“The clause outlines the responsibilities and jurisdictions of enforcement authorities tasked with ensuring compliance with part 6, which covers advertising and sponsorship. Subsection (1) establishes that the enforcement authorities are legally bound to enforce the provisions of the Bill, and subsection (2) contains th…”

“Clause 158 relates to shipping. I think a question was raised earlier about why ships were specifically excluded. That is partly because ships are important enough to have their own specific, separate clause. Clause 158 amends section 85 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and makes provision regarding safety regulations…”

“This is an important clause that I am pleased to see, as I have campaigned against vaping in children for quite some time, as the Minister is aware. As the Minister says, if you can smell it, you are breathing it in. That is an obvious statement, but I have had people tell me that vapes do not give out any smoke and th…”

“With respect to the Minister, the point was that they are treated the same. My understanding is that, because of the rules around tobacco, actors who are non-smokers are more likely to use a non-tobacco herbal product that does not contain nicotine. Given the Minister’s previous comments about tobacco being more harmfu…”

“Does the Minister accept that a fixed penalty notice of £200 is actually a more lenient penalty than a fine of £1,000 or a caution, which incurs a criminal offence?”

“I do not seek to weaken the Bill or its enforcement. I wish to see the Bill be successful in stopping people smoking and vaping, particularly our young people, and I wish to see people who are repeatedly flouting the law in this way treated appropriately. However, I am keen to understand whether the Minister feels ther…”

“That’s not true!”

“This group of amendments comes back to the principle of proportionality, because there is not complete coherence between the different penalties across the United Kingdom and on the different offences that can be committed under the Bill. The first part of amendment 84 would ensure that if someone admits guilt of a fir…”

“The key difference between a mobile phone and a cigarette is that with mobile phones, it is the driver using a mobile phone while driving that is the problem. If one is pulled over in a parking space in one’s private car, one can use one’s mobile phone to one’s heart’s content, and likewise when one is parked in one’s …”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his clear explanation of what he wishes to achieve. I have great sympathy with it, because nobody wants to see people making their health worse by smoking in a car. However, his statistics are quite interesting. He said that 9% of children find themselves on a regular basis in a car where…”

“The Minister is being generous with his time. He knows my thoughts on smoking and vaping, particularly in relation to children, and how important I think creating a smoke-free and nicotine-free generation is—although he does not share the second part. He is talking about how the Secretary of State needs to be able to m…”

“The Minister is making a reasonable point. However, the evidence can change on what constitutes a significant amount of smoke—in the past, people may have believed that someone had to be smoking in order to come to harm and then that someone could also come to harm in an enclosed indoor environment with someone smoking…”

“I doubt whether the Minister has provided a huge amount of reassurance to the hospitality sectors in those jurisdictions. I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff West in his intervention about prisons. As far as I can tell, closed prisons are smoke-free environments—that is already the case bot…”

“He is supporting it, but the Minister asked why my hon. Friend did not include things in it. The answer is that he did not write it. The amendments were written by others, one by the Liberal Democrats, and supported by him, which is not the same thing. The Minister will no doubt have caused concern for the people in ho…”