Clive Bates Speech
What did Clive Bates say today in London? Read the full transcript here.
-
by Toby Kilroy
Share on:
This is a noble effort. God’s work, if you like. We have a directive it was negotiated in secret, without consultation, none of the measures have been subject to any impact assessment, no-one can provide a rationale for most of what’s in it. There are expensive and arbitrary provisions in the directive and it will hold back a successful alternative to smoking. It will slow down the pace of innovation, it will make it relatively less attractive to smokers to switch, it will promote a relapse from vaping back to smoking and it will probably, with the assistance of many of you, create an enormous black market. It’s a terrible piece of legislation, the kind of thing you could say about it is it’s a dog’s breakfast, it’s a dog’s dinner it’s a dog eating through the night.
One of the problems with EU legislation, it’s very, very hard to overturn it. 28 member states have to agree, or a majority of member states have to agree. The commission has to admit it was wrong and come out with a new proposal or that parliament has to gang up against it. Now none of things is likely at the moment. The only thing that’s likely, or possible, is a successful challenge in the Court of Justice of the European Union, and thank goodness Totally Wicked has done us the service of doing that. It is a great thing for them to do, I know they are doing it for the best possible motive. There is nothing wrong with them being commercial about it but they are doing it because they care about this category, they care about the industry and they care about the impact it will have on public health. It’s a cause driven business and this is part of a good cause in challenging that directive.
I don’t want to really say any more about it, I just fully support what they are doing. If they are successful, and we probably won’t know for several months yet, but if they are successful it is very important that we don’t allow these people and their equivalents all around Europe and in Brussels to go into some knee-jerk response which is sort of embittered and just clamp down and call them all pharmaceuticals and effectively ban them. We must keep making the case for an enlightened regulatory framework, light-touch, sensible things that I know you all agree with. Nobody wants exploding chargers, nobody wants heavy metals in their eliquids, nobody wants kids glugging down nicotine liquids. All of those things can be dealt with with sensible, light-touch regulation that doesn’t require the kind of hammer fist that this lot have agreed in secret in Brussels.
So with that, we should just signal our appreciation to Totally Wicked and the 71,095 signatories to the petition. That is a good result for something like that - that is a good result. So just a little round of applause for everyone who has done this.
The original recording can be heard below
Toby Kilroy
Journalist at POTVToby has been vaping since early 2012 and has used an array of devices and kit in that time. He sometimes writes up reviews but is often found with his head stuck in pages of code with a confused smile on his face. Toby also helps run his wife's site gethistory.co.uk and has two children. He sometimes fondly remembers having free time and occasionally manages to sneak away to put his head into a good book!
Join the discussion
The Fed and IBVTA Reactions
The Federation of Independent Retailers and the Independent British Vape Trade Association have been providing reaction to the Government’s ban plan
-
by Dave Cross
Totally Wicked Sponsorship Rebuke
Unjust political criticism of Totally Wicked’s sponsorship of Blackburn Rovers Football Club has met with rebuke from the club
-
by Dave Cross
Veolia Launches Nationwide Scheme
Global resource specialists Veolia has launched a nationwide “disposable” vape collection scheme to provide a safe route for the three million currently being discarded per week
-
by Dave Cross
Illegal Sales Attacked by IBVTA
The BBC is reporting that children are at risk from illegal vape sales and the Independent British Vape Trade Association has expressed its concern
-
by Dave Cross
-listing400.jpg)
