Spring Budget 2024: Hunt confirms vaping tax and one-off tobacco duty hike to fund NI cut
Jeremy Hunt has confirmed the UK government will introduce a tax on vaping and e-cigarettes during his Spring Budget 2024 announcement, in a bid to raise the funds necessary for a two pence cut to National Insurance.
“To discourage non-smokers from taking up vaping, we are today confirming the introduction of a excise duty on vaping products from October 2026 and publishing a consultation on its design,” the Chancellor said on Wednesday.
“Because vapes can also play a positive role in helping people quit smoking, we’ll introduce a one off increase in tobacco duty at the same time to maintain the financial incentive to choose vaping over smoking,” he added.
The vaping tax will raise £445m in 2028-29, while the tobacco duty will raise a further £170m in the same year.
In the Spring Budget 2024, Hunt has cut National Insurance tax by two per cent ahead of the general election. But he has been looking for places where he can raise extra funds to balance the books.
Doug Mutter, director at UK vape seller VPZ, called the new tax consultation “alarming”. He said: “Increasing taxes on vaping will directly penalise and make products prohibitive for the most vulnerable in society at a time when many are doing their best to make positive life choices.
“The idea of raising tobacco duty to encourage more smokers to switch, whilst at the same time introducing a punitive vaping tax, is fundamentally flawed and will only punish people looking to quit smoking.
“There is a genuine fear that any move in this direction will further fuel the illicit black market and act as a deterrent for people looking to quit, which will hugely damage the progress we have made in reaching the UK’s 2030 Smoke Free ambitions,” Mutter explained.
He suggested the government should implement a licencing scheme where there is “proper enforcement and policing” to tackle youth vaping and the existing black market.
The vaping levy is expected to be placed on the liquid in vapes based on the amount of nicotine they contain.
Boss of online vape shop Evapo, Andrej Kuttruf, said this method is “misguided and will likely stall, if not reverse, the UK’s declining smoking rates by making the quitting journey harder for those trying hardest to quit.”
“Most of the 2.5 million former smokers who used vapes to quit, which Public Health England has routinely said is 95% less harmful than smoking, started their quitting journey by vaping the highest strength nicotine before reducing and ultimately quitting,” he explained.
Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ lobby group Forest, slammed the future vape tax as “stupid, short-sighted and potentially counter-productive” because it could deter existing smokers from switching to a “reduced risk product”.
Taxing vapes is based on similar schemes across Europe, including in Germany and Italy where levies range from €1.30 to €1.60 on each 10ml of vape liquid. The European Union (EU) is planning a bloc-wide vaping levy, of reportedly up to 40 per cent.
However, the boss of British American Tobacco, Tadeu Marroco, has welcomed the vaping tax, saying it would give the government “better control” of the industry where a large number of illegal products are likely stealing market share from BAT.
“A lot of people confuse that we are an industry that hates regulation, that’s exactly the opposite: we love regulation,” he told the Financial Times.
It comes amid the government’s drive to create a smoke-free generation. Last month, the government confirmed plans to ban disposable vapes and bring in a new law in a bid to stop children aged 15 and under from ever legally buying tobacco.
The plan, as well as restricting flavours designed to appeal to children, and enforcing plain packaging rules, is expected to benefit the environment, with 5m vapes thrown away weekly.