Disposable vapes will be banned from sale in England next summer, the government has confirmed.
From June 2025 it will be illegal to sell single-use vapes, in a move designed to combat environmental damage and their widespread use by children.
The legislation had been laid out in parliament, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs confirmed on Wednesday. The department said it had worked closely with devolved governments on the ban and would “align coming into force dates”.
Defra said businesses would have until 1 June next year “to sell any remaining stock they hold and prepare for the ban coming into force”.
The circular economy minister, Mary Creagh, said throwaway vapes were “extremely wasteful and blight our towns and cities”.
She added: “That is why we are banning single-use vapes as we end this nation’s throwaway culture. This is the first step on the road to a circular economy, where we use resources for longer, reduce waste, accelerate the path to net zero and create thousands of jobs across the country.”
The vaping lobby has argued that the bill will fuel parallel market sales of disposable vapes.
John Dunne, the director general of the UK Vaping Industry Association, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday: “One of the major concerns, at least with the last version of the bill that I saw prior to the new government coming in, [it] didn’t include, for instance, a ban on the importation of the products that they’re going to ban for sale. So in my view, that’s just going to fuel a black market.”
Dunne said vapers would buy products online from overseas and that the parallel market in vapes was already one “that the authorities can’t really keep up with”.
Rishi Sunak’s government tabled the legislation on the issue but it ran out of time in the previous parliament.
The tobacco and vapes bill would prevent anyone born from 2009 from legally smoking by gradually raising the age at which tobacco can be bought. It also aimed to impose restrictions on the sale and marketing of vapes to children.
Last year, it was estimated that almost 5m single-use vapes were either littered or thrown away in general waste every week in the UK – almost four times as much as the previous year.
Defra said vape usage in England had grown by more than 400% between 2012 and 2023, with 9.1% of the British public now buying and using the products.
The health minister Andrew Gwynne said: “It’s deeply worrying that a quarter of 11- to 15-year-olds used a vape last year and we know disposables are the product of choice for the majority of kids vaping today. Banning disposable vapes will not only protect the environment, but importantly reduce the appeal of vapes to children and keep them out of the hands of vulnerable young people.
“The government will also introduce the tobacco and vapes bill – the biggest public health intervention in a generation – which will protect young people from becoming hooked on nicotine and pave the way for a smoke-free UK.”
