Despite releasing its ‘Benefits of Brexit’ white paper earlier this week, in too many areas the Government still seems to lack the will or the imagination to diverge from EU laws.
Ministers seem more concerned with putting crown symbols on pint glasses than potentially saving the lives of millions of smokers by taking advantage of a golden opportunity to scrap anti-scientific vaping rules.
Whilst a member of the European Union, Britain’s laws surrounding vaping were largely controlled by the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD). To Britain’s credit, while the bureaucrats in Brussels and other member states wanted to restrict vaping products even further, our government was standing up for a more liberal approach – helping forestall an EU-wide ban on vaping products. Now that we have left, other EU member states’ desires to restrict vaping have stepped up a notch. With flavour bans appearing in countries such as Denmark and an EU wide vape tax is now being touted, it clearly shows the role the UK was playing in holding back the tide of regulation.
Britain could and should remove some of those restrictions which are actually hindering smokers moving to far safer reduced-risk nicotine products.
Mark Oates – CAPX – 2022-02-02.
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