Councillors raise serious concerns about public health drive in Hertfordshire promoting vapes to help smokers quit

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable illness and premature death across the country, with around 1,500 smoking-related deaths in Hertfordshire a year.

This year (2025-26) the county’s public health team has been allocated £1.27m from the ‘local authority stop smoking services and support grant’ in a bid to reduce the 9.7% of Hertfordshire residents who smoke.

On Tuesday (July 8) a meeting of the county council’s public health and community safety cabinet panel was briefed on the “exciting investment” and the range of advice and support available for those looking to quit.

A report to councillors said that stop smoking services are delivered across the county by public health specialists – in person or by phone – GP surgeries, community pharmacies and a number of healthy hubs, with further commissioning being explored. Smokers can also be offered the option to access 24/7 Smokefree apps and cognitive behaviour therapy.

The county’s approach supports the national ‘Swap to Stop’ campaign, where smokers can opt to use vapes to help them quit. The report said more than 1,200 vape kits were handed out in Hertfordshire in 2024-25 – and the ambition is that 5,850 Hertfordshire smokers will “set a quit date” this year.

Nevertheless, at the meeting, councillors repeatedly raised concerns about the potential harms caused by vaping and the message the approach could give.

Cllr Peter Colley (Reform, Stevenage Bedwell) pointed to the damage vapes could do to the lungs and to a condition that he suggested could be irreversible and as bad as tobacco.

He said: “… so you’re promoting the use of something that harms people. That’s what worries me.

“Are we going to be liable as an organisation, as a county, later on for claims that we’ve given people cauliflower lung?”

Liberal Democrat Cllr John Hale (Colney Heath and Marshalswick) also acknowledged the “very difficult position” where offering vapes as a means to stop smoking could be seen to be giving out the message that vaping is safe.

Cllr Matt Fisher (Green, St Albans Central) suggested it may be “jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire”.

He asked whether it was like asbestos in the 1960s and ’70s, when he said it was “arguably deemed a little bit safe” because they did not have the data. And he acknowledged that it was “a complex and balancing act”.

In response to concerns, Louise Savory, the council’s associate director for healthy places and communities, said that vapes were “less riskier” than cigarettes. She said the toxic chemicals in cigarettes were not in vapes.

And she pointed to evidence suggesting that smokers who used vapes as a smoking cessation tool – combined with NRT (nicotine replacement therapies) – were three times more likely to quit.

“It’s important to note however that although we’re promoting use of vaping as a stop smoking aid, what we’re not doing is encouraging the use of it by our young people,” she said. “It’s a bit of a balancing act. We don’t want our young people to be taking it up.”

Director of public health Sarah Perman acknowledged that vapes cause a lot of debate. She said public health followed national guidance and the advice of the chief medical officer (CMO). But she said they did look at this carefully and kept it under review, “weighing up the balance of harm”.

“We know that people who smoke – and continue to smoke – suffer more harm than those who switch to vaping,” she said.

“But we need to keep in mind those health impacts of vaping. And the evidence is only really beginning to be collected on that from large-scale research studies. So we will continue to keep it under review in line with the national clinical guidance and CMO advice on this.”

During the meeting attention was drawn to the importation of illegal cigarettes.

Lib Dem Dr Allison Wren (Harpenden Rural) said: “The government, I think, is very short-sighted if we’ve got all these cheap cigarettes coming into the country.

“You know… we’re attacking one end of the problem. But it also seems to me we should be putting on the government to spend more effort in preventing the import of essentially illegal cigarettes.”

Following the debate, Ms Perman committed to bringing a further report to the cabinet panel that would look at the work of trading standards in combating the illegal sale of vapes and cigarettes, particularly to children and young people.

And she suggested that that report would also provide further information around the harms and benefits of vaping and the clinical model in the smoking cessation service, acknowledging the questions asked at the meeting.