James Evans says the sale of vapes to children and young people should be covered by tighter regulation.

The Brecon and Radnorshire MS said at the Senedd that vaping is a serious issue affecting young people across Wales.

He said vapes should not be sold to children or under-18s and that there is a need for more enforcement from trading standards departments.

Mr Evans asked whether more money should be made available to trading standards departments to ensure that the sale of vapes to young people is covered by tighter enforcement.

Jenny Rathbone, MS for Cardiff Central, who had tabled the debate, said that she was aware it's in the UK Government's King's Speech legislation that it would give new powers to local authorities to enforce the age limits.

“I would actually prefer a UK-wide piece of legislation, because, otherwise, if we did legislate only in Wales, it could provoke the smuggling of illegal products targeting Wales, which would obviously be a very perverse outcome,” she said.

“But we can't rely on the UK Government to make time for this, because there seems to be all sorts of other things on their minds at the moment. So, I hope that we can get cross-party support for at least stopping our young people from having their lives ruined by something that is apparently quite neutral, but is, actually, probably extremely harmful.”