A Conservative peer proposed delaying the UK’s proposed ban on heated tobacco, weeks after a leading cigarette company paid for him to visit its research facility in Switzerland.
The tobacco and vapes bill would gradually raise the age at which consumers can buy cigarettes and other tobacco products, making the UK the first major economy to chart a course towards phasing out tobacco altogether.
But the timetable for heated tobacco could be disrupted after Lord Vaizey put forward an amendment that would require more research to be done into the “potential” harms that such products can cause relative to cigarettes.
Vaizey’s proposal came six weeks after he was a guest of Philip Morris International (PMI), whose IQOS product is the world-leading heated tobacco brand, during a two-day visit to its research facility in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
PMI paid for Vaizey’s flights and accommodation, according to his own parliamentary disclosures, analysed by the Guardian and the Examination, a non-profit newsroom that investigates global health threats.
The cost of the trip was not revealed and neither Vaizey nor PMI said whether other British parliamentarians were there.
Three weeks after the trip, on 23 April, Vaizey took part in a House of Lords debate on the tobacco and vapes bill.
During the debate, he disclosed his visit to the Philip Morris facility, known as the Cube, to which the tobacco company has also arranged visits for politicians from Finland and Colombia. The politicians from Colombia later cancelled their scheduled trip after it was reported in local media.
Vaizey said he had met scientists at the site who were researching heated tobacco.
Tobacco companies market heated tobacco products, which warm pre-rolled tobacco sticks to a lower temperature than traditional cigarettes, as a less harmful alternative to smoking because studies have shown that the devices emit fewer harmful chemicals than cigarettes.
But doctors and researchers have said that most of the research into heated tobacco has been paid for by the industry, and that the long-term health risks are unknown.
“There is an argument which says that people should be able to access nicotine if it can be done in a safe way,” said Vaizey, who said he used IQOS products.
“I want to say something controversial: a lot of the tone of this debate looks backward at the sins of the big tobacco. It does not perhaps acknowledge – though that might be too kind a word – that big tobacco has perhaps moved forward in terms of heated tobacco.”
On 14 May, six weeks after his visit to Switzerland, Vaizey tabled his amendment, which would delay the ban on heated tobacco products, including the IQOS.
He proposed that the health secretary be required to “assess the harm to human health associated with the use of tobacco related devices” and compare any harms with those caused by cigarettes.
The amendment appears to reheat elements of a legal challenge brought by Philip Morris in 2023 against the tobacco and vapes bill, which was initially proposed by the previous government.
PMI’s challenge questioned whether the government’s consultation was “meaningful”, on the basis that the outcome was pre-determined. It also sought to limit the scope of the ban to leave out heated tobacco products, which use devices to heat tobacco at a lower temperature than conventional cigarettes.
PMI withdrew its challenge after a response from government lawyers, who stated that the relative harms of cigarettes versus heated tobacco were not relevant.
This is because the gradual implementation of the ban, which raises the minimum age for tobacco purchase by one year every year, means that nobody affected would ever have been able to choose between the two methods of nicotine ingestion anyway.
At the time, Whitehall sources said the legal challenge was a delaying tactic by Philip Morris, whose IQOS heated tobacco product ships about 140m units a year and has replaced Marlboro as its most successful product by net revenue.
Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said Vaizey was repeating the tobacco industry’s playbook by suggesting that heated tobacco should be compared with cigarettes “rather than with the more appropriate comparator of not smoking”.
PMI did not respond to questions from the Guardian about Vaizey’s trip to Switzerland and its relationship with the Tory peer.
Lord Vaizey declined to comment.
