MPs back tobacco vending machine and display ban

MPs have backed a change to legislation that will see cigarette vending machines and tobacco displays banned.

The amendment to the Health Bill was passed by the Commons without going to a vote, and will now go before the House of Lords.

Labour MP Ian McCartney, who proposed the ban, called vending machines "an outrageous loophole in our country's safeguards" against underage tobacco sales and said that they were "almost exclusively used by children".

The proposed tobacco display ban will require retailers to sell tobacco only from closed containers or dispensers, with only a small sign indicating that tobacco products are on sale. Ireland brought in similar regulations earlier this year.

However, Conservative backbencher Philip David said that small retailers would be hardest hit by the measures.

"The big supermarkets can afford to change their displays and the way they display products," he said. "It is the small retailers who cannot."

The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) has also continued to criticise the proposals, saying that the display ban would be the "most costly and disruptive" of its type in the world.

ACS chief executive James Lowman called the proposals "the most inflexible of their type anywhere in the world".

"It makes a mockery of the repeated reassurances that ministers have made to Parliament and businesses that they will take a light touch approach to compliance," he added.

"ACS will make a strong case to Government that sets out how damaging their proposed approach to regulations is."