Disposable vapes will be banned in the UK as part of ambitious government plans to tackle the rise in youth vaping and protect children’s health, the Prime Minister has announced today (29).
As part of today’s package, new powers will be introduced to restrict flavours which are specifically marketed at children and ensure that manufacturers produce plainer, less visually appealing packaging. The powers will also allow government to change how vapes are displayed in shops, moving them out of sight of children and away from products that appeal to them like sweets.
"Alongside our commitment to stop children who turn 15 this year or younger from ever legally being sold cigarettes, these changes will leave a lasting legacy by protecting our children’s health for the long term," prime minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement.
To crack down on underage sales, the government will also bring in new fines for shops in England and Wales which sell vapes illegally to children. Trading standards officers will be empowered to act ‘on the spot’ to tackle underage tobacco and vape sales. This builds on a maximum £2,500 fine that local authorities can already impose.
Vaping alternatives – such as nicotine pouches – will also be outlawed for children who are increasingly turning to these highly addictive substitutes.
The measure comes as part of the government’s response to its consultation on smoking and vaping, which was launched in October last year.
Recent figures show the number of children using vapes in the past three years has tripled. Use among younger children is also rising, with 9 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds now using vapes. The long-term health impacts of vaping are unknown and the nicotine contained within them can be highly addictive, with withdrawal sometimes causing anxiety, trouble concentrating and headaches. While vaping can play a role in helping adult smokers to quit, children should never vape.
Disposable vapes have been a key driver behind the alarming rise in youth vaping, with the proportion of 11 to 17-year-old vapers using disposables increasing almost ninefold in the last two years.
The government has again reiterated its commitment to bring about the first smokefree generation and introduce legislation so children turning fifteen this year or younger can never legally be sold tobacco.
Smoking is the UK’s single biggest preventable killer – causing around one in four cancer deaths and leading to 80,000 deaths per year – so stopping young people from ever starting to smoke will protect an entire generation, and future generations, from smoking harms as they grow up.
To help ensure the success of the smokefree generation plan, £30 million new funding a year will be provided to bolster enforcement agencies – including Border Force, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Trading Standards – to implement these measures and stamp out opportunities for criminals.
The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, said, "As any parent or teacher knows, one of the most worrying trends at the moment is the rise in vaping among children, and so we must act before it becomes endemic.
The long-term impacts of vaping are unknown and the nicotine within them can be highly addictive, so while vaping can be a useful tool to help smokers quit, marketing vapes to children is not acceptable.
As Prime Minister I have an obligation to do what I think is the right thing for our country in the long term. That is why I am taking bold action to ban disposable vapes – which have driven the rise in youth vaping – and bring forward new powers to restrict vape flavours, introduce plain packaging and change how vapes are displayed in shops.
Alongside our commitment to stop children who turn 15 this year or younger from ever legally being sold cigarettes, these changes will leave a lasting legacy by protecting our children’s health for the long term.
"There was overwhelming support among responses to the government’s consultation for a disposable vape ban, with nearly 70 per cent of parents, teachers, healthcare professionals and the general public supportive of the measure. The government has a duty to protect children’s health, which is why it is taking bold and decisive action on smoking and vaping. This is the responsible thing to do to protect children for generations to come," states the government announcement.
Health and Social Care Secretary Victoria Atkins said, "Smoking is still the single largest preventable cause of death in England. Almost every minute of every day someone is admitted to hospital with a smoking-related disease. And its costs society £17 billion each year – putting a huge burden on our NHS.
That’s why we are driving the way forward through our smokefree generation plan, which will prevent our children from starting this dangerous habit.
The health advice is clear, vapes should only ever be used as a tool to quit smoking. But we are committed to doing more to protect our children from illicit underage vaping, and by banning disposable vapes we’re preventing children from becoming hooked for life.
Vapes should only be used by adults as a tool to quit smoking. They contribute to an extra 50,000-70,000 smoking quits a year in England.
As part of the government’s Swap to Stop scheme, almost one in five of all adult smokers in England will have access to a vape kit alongside behavioural support to help them quit the habit and improve health outcomes.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said: Smoking damages and cuts short lives in extraordinary numbers. Stillbirths, cancer, asthma, dementia, stroke and heart failure – smoking causes disability and death throughout the life course. If passed, this legislation would have a major public health impact across many future generations.
Health Minister Andrea Leadsom said, "We are in the midst of a worrying rise in young people vaping. I want to stop youth vaping in its tracks – and a ban on disposable vapes is central to that.
Nicotine is highly addictive – and so it is completely unacceptable that children are getting their hands on these products, many of which are undeniably designed to appeal to young people.
Along with tougher enforcement measures, we are making sure vapes are aimed at the people they were designed to help – adults who are quitting smoking.
As well as benefitting children’s health, the ban will have a positive impact on the environment. Five million disposable vapes are thrown away each week, up from 1.3 million from last year. Over a year this is equivalent to the lithium batteries of 5,000 electric vehicles.
Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said: Not only are disposable vapes often targeted, unacceptably, at children – they also represent a huge and growing stream of hard-to-recycle waste, with nearly 5 million thrown away every week.
This historic announcement will be a powerful tool in support of our efforts to crack down on waste and boost recycling, as well as helping to create the first smokefree generation.
The 10-week public consultation on ‘Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping’, closed on 6 December. Over 25,000 responses were analysed, and the government response sets out plans for upcoming legislation which will be introduced in Parliament shortly.
Snappy Shopper, the UK’s leading quick-commerce platform, has entered into a ground breaking strategic partnership with Foodhub, one of the country’s fastest-growing online food ordering platforms.
Through this collaboration, customers will now gain convenient access to Snappy’s wide selection of grocery items alongside Foodhub’s popular range of local restaurant offerings.
This innovative partnership, building on recent partnerships with Allwyn UK, Booker Wholesale and One Stop Retail, combines Snappy Shopper’s market-leading in-store grocery technology with Foodhub’s established takeaway platform, creating an “all-in-one” experience for customers. Through this integration, customers can now order groceries from Snappy Shopper’s UK wide network of convenience stores, directly with the Foodhub app.
The collaboration aims to enhance convenience for shoppers at the same time as maximising the audience reach for Snappy’s retail partners, at no additional cost.
Mike Callachan, CEO of Snappy Shopper, said, "Our mission at Snappy Shopper is to fuel growth for retailers and bring unmatched convenience to communities. “With partnerships like those we’ve recently established with Allwyn UK, Booker Wholesale, One Stop Retail and now with Foodhub, we’re expanding access for both small and large retailers to reach more customers - by taking the best that local convenience stores have to offer, directly to digital customers. We will continue to innovate and create new opportunities for our retailers to grow their sales during a period when market conditions are tough.”
Snappy Shopper’s market leading in-store tech can now be used to accept orders from multiple platforms. It's order aggregation feature ensures that orders are received seamlessly, arriving directly on the existing in-store devices for quick and efficient fulfilment using the already established in store process our retailers are familiar with.
This enhancement allows Snappy Shopper’s retailers to access online customers across multiple channels while managing in-store operations with one streamlined system. Launching with a phased rollout, select Snappy Shopper stores will initially join Foodhub’s marketplace, with plans to expand nationwide.
Ardian Mula, CEO of Foodhub, said: "Foodhub's partnership with Snappy makes life even easier for our loyal customers. They're now going to be able to order essential groceries from store to door in around just 30 minutes at the tap of a button through our app. And, as the UK's fastest growing takeaway marketplace platform, this partnership means we're going to offer even more people the chance to enjoy their food and drink at great value prices."
Snappy Shopper listed grocery, convenience and retail stores that are interested in availing of this opportunity are encouraged to reach out to their dedicated point-of-contact, or if new and keen to explore delivery fill in this form.
Earlestown Athletic Junior Football Club have a brand-new training kit thanks to the support of SPAR Newton-le-Willows.
The club’s Under-17s Celtic team have SPAR sponsored yellow and black shirts and black shorts helping the players look and feel more professional at training sessions and on matchdays.
SPAR advertising boards have also been put up at the club’s ground, The Hive, and the sponsorship came about after Club Manager Carl Hollingsworth made a beeline for the SPAR Newton-le-Willows store when seeking a kit sponsor for the 2024-25 season.
Carly Ashurst, Store Manager at SPAR Newton-le-Willows, said: “I am very pleased we have been able to help out Earlestown on this occasion and are proud to be a sponsor of the club.
“SPAR is a community retailer, and I was delighted to visit the ground with my Area Manager Gill Leech to meet the team and give them our support for the rest of the season.”
Dave Edwards, Club Secretary at Earlestown Athletic JFC, said: “Huge thanks to SPAR for supporting our club with the training kit and advertising boards at our ground.
“The training kits look fantastic and are a much-valued resource for our players who train in them twice a week and also wear them to warm up before kick-off on Sundays.”
James Hall & Co. Ltd is a fifth-generation family business which serves a network of independent SPAR retailers and company-owned SPAR stores across Northern England six days a week from its base at Bowland View in Preston.
Farmers have warned they have "nothing to lose", campaigners have warned, amid fears grow that parts of the farming industry may disrupt food supplies in protest against the Government's inheritance tax policy while ministers are reportedly preparing contingency plans to ensure stores shelves remain stocked.
Industry officials are closely monitoring the escalating tensions and are expected to meet with government representatives this week to assess the potential impact of any action, The Telegraph reported on Sunday (17). This comes ahead of a planned rally on Tuesday (19), where as many as 20,000 farmers are set to converge outside Parliament to protest a 20 per cent tax on inherited agricultural land valued at over £1 million.
Campaign groups cautioned on Sunday that failure to negotiate a resolution could see more radical factions resort to drastic measures, such as blockading ports, airports, and railway lines.
The threat has raised concerns about empty supermarket shelves this winter and risks bringing back memories of disruption last seen at the start of the Covid pandemic, when people stockpiled food at home.
However, Environment Secretary Steve Reed has dismissed the possibility of a policy reversal. Writing in The Telegraph, he urged farmers to “check the facts” and defended the Government’s stance.
In a further attempt to defuse tensions, one minister called for calm, while a Labour MP suggested dissenting farmers had been misled by powerful landowners. With the protest looming and supply chains under threat, the Government faces mounting pressure to address the growing unrest within the farming community.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, who is currently attending the G20 summit in Brazil, defended the Government’s Budget, highlighting a record £5 billion investment in farming. Speaking to reporters aboard a flight to Rio de Janeiro, he acknowledged concerns over the controversial inheritance tax but sought to reassure farmers.
“Obviously, there’s an issue around inheritance tax, and I do understand the concern,” Starmer said. “But for a typical case—parents with a farm they want to pass on to one of their children—by the time you account for exemptions on the farm property, spouse-to-spouse transfers, and parent-to-child allowances, there’s £3 million before any inheritance tax applies. That’s why I am absolutely confident the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected by this.”
The National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has publicly urged its members not to strike, but some farmers are threatening action. Clive Bailye, one of the organisers of Tuesday’s protest, said he would not condone direct action but warned some farmers could take matters into their own hands.
“If they really got their act together, they could block entire train tracks and ports. English farmers are a bit more Queensberry Rules than the French, they don’t want to punish the public. I could see things like ports or airports being disrupted if the Government really does dig in, that is what we are going to see over the winter.”
Meanwhile, Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said, “Retailers are closely monitoring the impact of the potential interventions, including strikes, but are adept at dealing with disruption and are working hard to ensure customers aren’t impacted.”
Essex Police has urged the stores selling knives and blades to sign up to its Responsible Retailer scheme.
The initiative is a partnership with Essex Trading Standards and the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner to help prevent knife crime.
Responsible Retailers pledge to
Store and display knives safely and securely
Operate a strict ‘Challenge 25’ age verification policy
Prominently display ‘Challenge 25’ posters explaining age verification to customers
Provide full and robust training for retail staff
Understand they could refuse sale to anyone if there is a concern a knife will be misused, or if the buyer appears drunk, agitated or aggressive
Share relevant knife crime intelligence with appropriate agencies.
“Stores must not sell knives or blades to anyone who is drunk or who appears agitated or aggressive. Staff should also consider the sale carefully if the customer is presenting any signs of being in crisis or other such vulnerability,” PC Glen Foote said.
“In fact, they can refuse entry, refuse to serve or remove people from their premises for a variety of reasons.
“We want staff to feel confident to refuse a sale, particularly if they are concerned a knife or blade will be misused, even if the person is legally old enough to buy one.
“The law states you must be 18 or over to buy a knife but we ask scheme members to agree to Challenge 25, which means asking for ID from anyone who appears to be under 25 if they seek to buy one.”
Foote also pointed out that anyone buying a knife or bladed article online should also be asked to verify they are 18 when they buy it and should be asked for ID when it is delivered or they collect it.
Across Essex, police recorded 1,498 incidents of knife-enabled crime in the 12 months to 31 October 2024.
This is a slight decrease when compared with the same period last year and an approximately 8 per cent decrease on pre-Covid levels.
If you are a store owner or manager and wish to find out more about the Responsible Retailer scheme or contact Essex Police business crime officers, visit the webpage.
Diageo needs its leading stout beer Guinness to keep growing fast and is pushing a zero alcohol alternative. But price hikes are turning off some UK customers and opening the door to rivals such as Heineken's Murphy's.
Guinness has been a much-needed bright spot in earnings for the world's top spirits maker, under pressure after a downturn in sales of other key brands like Johnnie Walker whiskey in some markets helped force a profit warning last year.
Diageo has made continued momentum for Guinness a key part of its growth strategy. Future drivers include a potential roll-out of Guinness 0.0, the zero-alcohol version, on draught in pubs beyond Ireland. It is currently testing the move at The Devonshire pub in London.
But years of double-digit growth for Guinness have caught the eye of rivals, including the world's top beer maker Anheuser-Busch InBev, which hope to become more serious competitors to Guinness, a dark beer with a rich malty taste.
Meanwhile, a series of price hikes has irked Guinness customers like Shane Ranasinghe, who with co-directors runs seven pubs across south London, including The Montpelier in Peckham and The Railway in Streatham.
He and two other UK publicans Reuters spoke to said they had started pushing rival brands, in particular Heineken stout Murphy's, to express their frustration and dent Guinness' hold on the market.
Ranasinghe and his co-directors put Murphy's next to Guinness on tap at their pubs, and later added signs advertising that Murphy's is around one pound cheaper at between £5.60 and £5.90 per pint.
"We said, 'let's give them (Diageo) some competition'," he told Reuters. "It was a struggle at first. Now, one in four pints of stout are Murphy's."
A Guinness and a Guinness 0.0 zero alcohol beer taps are seen at The Devonshire pub in Soho, London, Britain, October 10, 2024. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Complaints like Ranasinghe's are growing across London pubs, he and the two other publicans said, adding that as well as hiking prices Diageo had become restrictive in providing Guinness glassware and reduced the technical support on offer.
To be sure, Guinness remains by far the most popular stout. Previous efforts, including by Heineken, to break into the market have had little success.
But such frustrations offer an opportunity for rivals to capture more of stout's growth in Britain as drinkers and pubs look to "rebel against Guinness' dominance", said Lee Williams, beer category manager at UK alcohol distributor LWC Drinks.
Stout sales grew 12 per cent in Britain in 2023, and have risen every month since November 2021, driven by Guinness, according to the British Beer and Pub Association. The UK is the world's largest market for stout, worth $971 million (£769m) in 2023, according to drinks market research firm IWSR.
Diageo made $4.1 billion in beer sales in its 2023-24 financial year. It does not publish separate sales for Guinness, but the stout is its largest beer brand.
"We are proud that Guinness is enjoyed in over 60,000 pubs and restaurants across the UK," a Diageo spokesperson said, adding a team visited those outlets weekly to ensure quality standards as part of a major investment in the brand.
Growth, margins
Diageo is looking to Guinness to help offset faltering spirits sales. Guinness sales have grown double digits every year since 2021. Sales of Guinness 0.0 have also surged, more than doubling in Europe last year.
It wants to drive further growth including via sponsorship of English Premier League soccer and the potential expansion of Guinness 0.0 on draught, already available across 1,700 pubs in Ireland.
In Britain, where Guinness 0.0 is widely available in cans, Diageo said the label had reached an 8 per cent share of overall Guinness sales at end-June.
Diageo charges more for Guinness 0.0 than standard Guinness, because the company says it is more expensive to produce, two Irish publicans told Reuters. That is despite it avoiding hefty alcohol duties, which the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI) estimates average €0.55 per pint.
General view of the exterior of St. James's Gate Guinness Brewery, in Dublin, Ireland October 9, 2024. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne
Diageo recently doubled capacity for non-alcoholic stout at its Guinness brewery in Dublin to 176 million pints per year. If all of those were sold in Ireland, it would mean €97m in duty savings for Diageo based on DIGI's estimates.
The Hope Fitzrovia in central London makes a 52 per cent margin on Guinness, versus 75 per cent for Murphy's, said owner Philip O'Sullivan.
Simon Clarke, who owns The Railway in south London's Tulse Hill, added Murphy's on tap after Diageo hiked his Guinness prices around 25 per cent since 2020 and, at one stage, three times in a year.
He used to sell 10 kegs of Guinness a week; now around a third of that is Murphy's.
Competition
Heineken told Reuters that its distribution of Murphy's in Britain remained small and it had not increased marketing support to the brand. However, it added: "We are seeing more licensees looking for an alternative to the market leader."
AB InBev, meanwhile, said growth in the stout market prompted it to launch its Camden Stout in May last year, adding it was now the second-largest brand in British pubs, restaurants and other venues. Britain's BrewDog also launched a stout, Black Heart, last year.
Murphy's, Camden Stout and Black Heart don't have zero-alcohol versions. Guinness 0.0, meanwhile, became the eighth top-selling non-alcoholic beer in British pubs or other venues in 2023, after launching cans in venues in 2022, according to food and drink research company CGA using Nielsen data.
Guinness is likely to remain dominant, but other brands can also succeed as more drinkers, including young people and women, get a taste for stout, LWC's Williams said.
"We believe they will look for alternatives," he said. "Instead of just one player, there could be three or four brands of scale."