Ministers have been told that a plan to ban the sale of disposable vapes next summer could lead to some users “reverting or reverting” to cigarette smoking.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said vape use in England had grown by more than 400% between 2012 and 2023, with 9.1% of the public buying and using the products.
Legislation due to be introduced to Parliament this year will ban the sale of single-use vapes in England, partly to limit the environmental damage they cause.
However, an impact assessment by Defra found that “29% of current people (people who vape) will return to smoking tobacco” as a result of the ban. Officials said: “If the ban increases cigarette use, there could be health harm.”
The report added: “We assume that most users of disposable vapes will switch to reusable vapes, but there will be a proportion of users who may return to smoking tobacco or stop vaping and smoking altogether.”
The legislation was introduced under the premiership of Rishi Sunak, but the government ran out of time in the last parliament.
The Tobacco and Vaping Act would prevent anyone born from 2009 onwards from legally smoking by gradually raising the age at which tobacco can be purchased. It also aims to impose restrictions on the sale and marketing of vapes to children.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said this month he planned to introduce the bill “before Christmas”.
Labor MP Mary Glindon criticized the Chancellor’s tax increase on vape fluid during the Budget debate, saying it could discourage people from quitting smoking.
Glindon, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, said the increase, due in October 2026, was “unsustainably high” and would “harm working people” who used vapes.
In the budget, Rachel Reeves also included increases of 2% for tobacco and 10% for hand-rolled tobacco. It followed research suggesting around 1 million adults in England now vape, despite never smoking regularly.
The study, published in Lancet Public Health, looked at survey data collected between 2016 and 2024 among 153,073 adults in England, 94,107 of whom had never smoked tobacco regularly.
Before 2021, the proportion of never-regular smokers who vaped in England was low, averaging 0.5% between 2016 and 2020. This rose to 3.5% in April 2024, equating to around 1 million vapers. Among them, more than half – an estimated 588,000 – were between 18 and 24 years old, the study found.
A separate study led by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) found that banning the sale of tobacco to people born between 2006 and 2010 could prevent 1.2 million lung cancer deaths by 2095.
It is estimated that almost five million single-use vapes are thrown into the rubbish bin or thrown away as normal waste every week in the UK – almost four times as many as the previous year.
A government spokesperson said: “Our changes will protect a whole generation of children from the dangers of smoking and nicotine addiction. A quarter of 11 to 15 year olds used a vape last year and overall the number of children using it has tripled in the past three years. Our Tobacco and Vape Bill will pave the way for a smoke-free Britain – helping future generations to live well for longer and easing the pressure on our NHS.”