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The regulations, set to come into force in April 2025, outline which products will be subject to a ban (vapes that are neither rechargeable nor refillable) and the penalties for contravening the ban, although despite the amount of time the government has had to draft the regulations, some definitions remain to be clarified.
As is the case with all significant regulation change, the statutory instruments were accompanied by an impact assessment, which looks at both the positive and negative impact on different stakeholders.
This is the government’s opportunity to show its workings, relying on a wide range of evidence to accurately model the costs and benefits. At least, that’s what it’s supposed to do.
When we went through the impact assessment, we were shocked at how ‘back of an envelope’ the calculations were.
The government has decided to calculate the financial hit to retailers as a result of lost vape sales on the basis of the overall margin figure for a convenience store. They even state that they simply don’t know what the margins on vape products are.
As a result of this failure to do any real research, the government has enormously underestimated the cost of the ban.
There’s another major issue with the assessment. The assessment fails to acknowledge the change in recycling rules on vapes that came into effect in January 2024, claiming the old £100,000 turnover threshold was what retailers should be following.
This oversight again changes the way that the regulations should be viewed.
What all this adds up to is a need for as many retailers as possible to have their voices heard by their MPs on the real impact of a ban.
We have a simple tool on our website where you can put in your postcode and it will generate a template email to your MP, and we’ll continue to fight the case for regulations to be proportionate and evidence-based.
James Lowman is chief executive at the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS)
