My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Storey on securing and so effectively introducing this wide-ranging debate. Like him, I am enormously grateful to the many organisations, including the Library, that have provided such useful briefings for us. They made quite worrying reading. For instance, I learned from Society Inside that

“almost 1 million young people have tried vaping” and, crucially, that

“by the time they leave school over 30% regularly vape”.

It is very clear from the debate so far that there is widespread support in your Lordships’ Chamber for action to stop children using vaping products. I suspect that there is widescale support for the view of the Chief Medical Officer that

“marketing vapes to children is utterly unacceptable”.

I certainly share those views, so I am particularly pleased that the current Government are picking up where the last one left off with what they claim will be measures to further combat smoking and youth vaping. I very much hope that we will hear more about those plans when the Minister winds up.

But I strongly agree with those who have pointed out that new legislation alone is not enough. After all, the vast majority of those 1 million children who have tried vaping bought vapes either from shops or online, so it is quite clear that current legislation, which bans their sale to under-18s, is not being effectively enforced. Improved enforcement will be a vital component of any new measures that are introduced. It is worth recalling what an important role local authority trading standards departments have to play in this. Yet, as we know, they are very badly underresourced. Any new measures must include additional resources to enable the training of additional trading standards officers.

While bearing in mind that we also need to have tougher deterrents, such as higher fines, for retailers that break the law, we must recognise that we have a huge backlog in our courts. I hope consideration will also be given to allowing the use of fixed penalty notices against those who flout the rules.

I want to make just two points to help strengthen the case for action, one relating to health and one to safety issues around lithium-ion batteries. To echo the concerns of the noble Lords, Lord Winston and Lord Bethell, and others, I acknowledge that we have the benefit of more than 60 years of research into the links between smoking and health—research that has led to many of the measures that have been taken to reduce smoking so effectively, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, reminded us—but research into the health risks associated with vaping is in its infancy. The medical department of Johns Hopkins University in the States recently wrote:

“With tobacco, we have six decades of rigorous studies to show which of the 7,000 chemicals inhaled during smoking impact the lungs. But with vaping, we simply don’t know the short- or long-term effects yet and which e-cigarette components are to blame”.

But the emerging findings are worrying. The World Health Organization has said that vapes are harmful and that the dangers of vaping, especially by children, are of concern. Prior to becoming Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting MP pointed out that although vaping helps smoking cessation,

“we should not send the message to the country that vaping is good for our health or that it is without harmful consequences

We already know of the presence of cytotoxic metals and silicate particles and of a range of chemicals in e-cigarette vapour that can lead to lung tissue inflammation and damage. I know a little of this from personal experience. I used to be a heavy smoker, but several years ago I was able to quit by becoming equally addicted to my vape. Then one night, during the election campaign, I coughed up a great deal of blood. A range of tests led to the discovery of three lumps in my lungs, with the suspicion that I had lung cancer. Fortunately, further tests revealed that the lumps are not cancerous—at least, not yet. No one was entirely sure what had caused the lumps to develop, but I felt pretty certain that the vaping had been a major contributory factor.

Of course, I am well aware of the dangers of amateurs doing Google searches about their own health. However, I did the reading about vaping harm. As a result, I am pretty certain that I have vaping-related lipoid pneumonia resulting from inhaling oily substances found in e-liquid. Of course, I do not really know, but I do know that while vaping may be safer than smoking, it is not without its dangers. This is especially so for children, which is why there is an urgent need—even in the absence of the additional research that is desperately needed—to adopt, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, pointed out, the precautionary principle and to take all necessary steps to stop children vaping.

My second point relates to the safety of lithium-ion batteries which power vapes. I have frequently raised my concerns about the safety of lithium-ion batteries in your Lordships’ House. They are increasingly important. They store more energy than any other type of battery, allowing for longer use, but if overheated through misuse, damage or using substandard charging, they can create fierce fires with very high temperatures that are difficult to extinguish and which release toxic gases.

In the context of vaping, it is the disposable vapes that are the most concerning. It is estimated that well over 84 million disposable vapes are thrown away each year. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, pointed out, that is 10 tonnes of lithium thrown away every year. But the real worry is how disposable vapes are got rid of. Producers of vapes are not doing what they should to recycle electrical waste from vapes. Shops selling vapes often do not, as they should, have recycling points. So most disposable vapes simply end up in domestic rubbish. They get picked up by refuse vehicles, which then compact all the rubbish in a process that can damage some of the batteries and lead to thermal runaway fires in the vehicles. There has been a huge increase in the number of such fires in the last few years, and even if they are not damaged in the refuse vehicle, they can be during the compacting process at landfill sites where, again, the number of fires has increased significantly. On these and related environmental grounds alone, there is a strong case for banning all disposable vapes, and I hope that the Minister will assure us that this will be included in the Government’s plans.

Finally, I should point out that when I did vape, I never used disposable vapes, but now, given my own experience, I do not use any type of vape and have to rely on gum to help my addiction instead. I just hope that measures will soon be in place that prevent children needing to do the same.