Vaping companies have spent £470k on MPs and Westminster backers over the past six years. MPs including Adam Afriyie, Mary Glindon, and Gareth Johnson have joined a new group in Parliament funded by vaping firms. The Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA) has committed £37,500 as the sole backer of a new all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for 'responsible vaping', which was registered last week.
APPGs are informal interest groups of MPs that facilitate cross-party work on an issue, and have come under increasing scrutiny over their links to industry lobbying in Westminster. The APPG has said it intends to work with the Government to develop its plans to regulate the industry, in legislation which will be debated by MPs for the first time on Tuesday. The vaping industry's contribution is the latest in a series of donations to MPs and parliamentary groups amounting to £470,000 over the last six years. Sir Alistair Graham, a former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said he believed a vaping trade body funding a group designed to hold the industry to account 'clearly' presented conflicts of interest: 'There should be some restriction on receiving funding from outside industry bodies. It is essentially a backdoor way of influencing Government.
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