No sin, no tax

Despite earlier fears, the UK Exchequer has no plans to introduce a new tax on vaping products.
The UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA) said yesterday that it had received a letter from HM Treasury in which the Exchequer Secretary, Robert Jenrick, said ‘we have no current plans to introduce a new tax on vaping products’.
Jenrick was writing to the UKVIA in response to an open letter that was signed also by the Center for Policy Studies, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, The Freedom Association and the New Nicotine Alliance.
Following media speculation at the beginning of this month that vaping products were to become the subject of a ‘sin tax’, the UKVIA pointed out that, according to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) figures, of the nearly three million UK vapers, more than half had given up smoking, and 97 percent were either smokers or ex-smokers.
It said that the value of health gains associated with a single successful quit attempt was £74,000 according to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and therefore, the ASH figures suggested that vaping had already saved the UK in the region of £111 billion.
And it could save more, though it had to be borne in mind that the principal reason for people switching to vaping from smoking was that vaping was substantially cheaper.
In his response, Jenrick said he agreed that vaping had a role to play in reducing smoking, as set out in the Department of Health and Social Care’s Tobacco Control Plan ‘towards a smoke free generation’.
And he noted the UKVIA’s comments about the savings to the NHS and the statistics from ASH.