Experts Deliver their Tax Responses

Dr Sarah Jackson is a Principal Research Fellow at the University College London Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group. She said: “The decision to pivot from the planned duty structure, which would have taxed products containing higher nicotine strengths at higher rates, to a flat-rate duty is welcome.  This avoids discouraging vapers from using lower nicotine strengths, which may be less effective for quitting smoking or preventing relapse among ex-smokers.”

However, Dr Jackson went on to warn about the unwanted consequences of the tax: “The £2.20 per 10ml duty rate will substantially increase the cost of vaping.  This will make vaping less affordable for young people and might therefore help to reduce youth vaping rates.  However, it will also make it more expensive for people to use e-cigarettes to stop smoking (although the planned tobacco tax increase means it should still be cheaper to vape than smoke).  This could undermine progress in reducing smoking, which is the much more harmful behaviour.  Unintended consequences could be greater for more disadvantaged groups who are more likely to smoke but have less money to spend.”

Professor Nicholas Hopkinson is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London. He is also sits on the board of Action on Smoking and Health. He commented: “This is a broadly sensible approach.  We know that reducing the affordability of smoking is both one of the most important measures to encourage people who smoke to quit and also reduces the risk that young people get hooked in the first place.

“Vaping is much less harmful than smoking, so switching to e-cigarettes substantially reduces health risks.  At the same time, vaping is not completely harmless and vape devices available for pocket money prices are one of the reasons why there has been a big increase in youth vaping.

“A tax on e-liquids, while also maintaining a big price difference between smoking and vaping should cover both bases.  Switching to vaping will still save smokers money as well as improving their health.  At the same time, making vaping less affordable should help to keep e-cigarettes out of the hands of children.”

Nick hasn’t looked at the detail. While parroting Bloomberg attack lines on vaping, he has missed that the tax will make direct-to-lung style vaping (the most popular type) almost unaffordable and places a disproportionate burden on cheaper products used by those who struggle financially – making black market items and cigarettes more appealing.

Nick “Grimm” Green said: “This is a bad idea for so many reasons, not including the illicit market. The UK already has an out-of-control illicit market for disposables, and I imagine this is just going to make everything worse. Not to mention, this is also kind of a big middle finger to everybody who’s already quit smoking with vaping. Why should they get taxed uniquely for quitting? I’m having a hard time making this one make sense.”

Harm reduction expert Clive Bates stated: “The Government will heavily tax quitting smoking by switching to vaping. So much for the promise to reduce the burden on the NHS and to prevent, not treat, ill health. It may not work as intended: criminal networks will expand to supply unregulated, untaxed products to anyone.”

Finally, Mo Razzaq, the National President of the Federation of Independent Retailers warned that the tax on vaping will probably pan out like taxing smoking: “When tobacco prices rise, more smokers are lured to the illicit market which damages the business of legitimate retailers and damages communities. The government needs to do more to tackle the illicit market to better protect the livelihoods of members who legitimately sell tobacco.”

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.