The Department engages regularly with local authority representative groups to understand pressures on their animal welfare functions, including kennelling and enforcement.

Powers in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill allow us to develop a new registration and testing scheme for all vape, nicotine, and tobacco products. These powers will apply across the United Kingdom, and it is therefore vital that the future registration scheme works for all nations.

We are in the process of developing the new registration scheme and we launched a call for evidence in October 2025 which sought further detail on the existing product notification schemes and where registration could go further than current requirements. The call for evidence closed on 3 December 2025, and we are in the process of analysing the responses.

We are working closely with the devolved administrations on all future regulations and officials meet with them regularly to discuss a range of issues. This includes on the registration scheme and the coordination across the United Kingdom that will be a crucial part of any considerations. Policy proposals will be subject to further consultation before regulations are made with sufficient lead time for businesses to adjust to the new requirements.

Officials in the Department of Health and Social Care regularly meet with officials from other departments, including HM Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, the Office for Product Safety and Standards, Border Force, and the Home Office, as well as National Trading Standards, to share intelligence and ensure a coordinated approach to the enforcement of our rules on vaping products. This coordinated approach to enforcement will continue once the Tobacco and Vapes Bill becomes law.

Furthermore, in 2025/26, we are investing £30 million of new funding in total for enforcement agencies including Trading Standards, Border Force, and HM Revenue and Customs, to tackle the illicit and underage sale of tobacco and vapes, and to help enforce the law. As part of this, the Government is investing £10 million of new funding in 2025/26 in Trading Standards. This funding is being used to boost the Trading Standards workforce by hiring 94 apprentices across England.

The agreement will cover SPS standards and controls and also wider agrifood rules related to food labelling, organics, and key marketing standards and compositional standards.

The EU has accepted there will need to be a number of areas where we need to retain our own rules. The details of these are subject to negotiation, but we have been clear about the importance of being able to set high animal welfare standards, support public health, and support the use of new and innovative technologies.

The Prime Minister announced that we will be publishing an animal welfare strategy later this year.