Milton Keynes, 14 August 2026.

British e-liquid manufacturer Riot Labs has launched a free public portal to get retailers and adult ex-smokers into the Government's consultation on vape packaging, appearance and display, which closes at 11:59pm on Friday 2 October.

The portal, at savevaping.co.uk, takes a user through three actions in around ten minutes: a letter to their MP, a guided response to the consultation, and the Relapse Register, a new record of adult ex-smokers who say the proposed rules would put them at risk of returning to cigarettes.

The company said it built the portal because vape retail has been the subject of three separate Government interventions in five weeks, and because the consultation is the only one of those the public can still influence. The consultation opened on 10 July. On 23 July vape shops were named in a business rates announcement covering pubs and music venues. On 11 August the Government announced that new vape shops in England will require planning permission, that councils will gain powers to block openings near schools, and that closure orders will double from six months to twelve.

Ben Johnson, Chief Executive of Riot Labs, said: "Every organisation in this industry has spent a month telling people to respond to the consultation, and almost none of them have explained how. It is a long form written for policy professionals. Most people open it, look at it and close it again. We have taken it apart so it fits into a coffee break, and then we have got out of the way, because the only responses worth anything are the ones in somebody's own words."

No copy-and-paste text is provided, because consultation analysts routinely treat identical submissions as a single response. Every letter and answer is generated from the user's own responses and can be edited before it is sent.

Riot Labs argues that the three interventions share a flaw: each treats every vape shop as the same kind of business. The company is asking the Government to switch on the retail licensing scheme already legislated in the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 and apply it to every seller, with licences revocable for breaches, explicitly including shops selling Riot Labs' own products.

On the planning measures, the company argues that planning permission is a location test rather than a test of how a shop is run, and that because it applies to new premises it cannot reach a badly run shop that is already trading.

Action on Smoking and Health made a similar observation about the mechanism in its response to the 11 August announcement, noting the planning changes would "likely only apply to new premises" while the licensing scheme in the Tobacco and Vapes Act would apply to "both existing and new shops selling tobacco and nicotine products". The charity also cautioned against treating "all vape shops like rogue businesses when some play an important role in helping adults to quit smoking". Action on Smoking and Health campaigns for tighter regulation of the vaping industry and has not endorsed Riot Labs' position.

Johnson said: "We are a manufacturer asking Government to license the shops we sell to, and to take that licence away from anyone who fails, including anyone selling our products. The current free-for-all, where anybody with a lease and a card reader can open a vape shop, is commercially good for us in the short term and we are asking for it to end. Planning permission cannot close a single badly run shop that is already trading. A licence can."

Riot Labs supports several of the measures under consultation without qualification, including bans on cartoon characters, on flavour names referencing sweets or desserts, and on devices designed to imitate toys or everyday objects. It backed the extension of closure orders announced on 11 August and the tightening of the definition of a vape shop. It opposes standardised packaging, restricting devices to white, black or grey, and removing vapes from display in specialist age-restricted shops that children cannot enter.

The company points to the Government's own impact assessment, which rejected tobacco-style packaging for vapes on the basis that it "could risk conflating the level of harm between tobacco and vaping products". Survey data published by Action on Smoking and Health shows 54 per cent of adults wrongly believe vaping is as harmful as smoking or worse.

Johnson said: "The Government's own analysis says making vapes look like cigarettes risks convincing smokers there is no point switching. More than half of recent ex-smokers used a vape in their last quit attempt, which is 2.7 million people. That is the group nobody is counting, which is why we built the Relapse Register."

Riot Labs said data submitted through the portal is used for the campaign only, is never used for marketing, is never shared, and is deleted within 30 days of the campaign ending. The portal carries no marketing opt-in.

The portal is at savevaping.co.uk. It is free and open to retailers and members of the public.

The Department of Health and Social Care consultation "Tobacco and vapes: packaging, appearance and display" opened on 10 July 2026 and closes at 11:59pm on Friday 2 October 2026.

The Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April 2026 and provides for retail licensing, which has not yet been brought into operation.

Riot Labs proposes a three-tier licensing model: every seller licensed and subject to revocation, the strictest display and age-verification rules in general retail where children shop, and a licensed adult-only specialist tier with controlled display. Specialist tobacconists have held an equivalent display exemption for more than a decade.

Riot Labs' written submission to Government is available to journalists on request.

The Government's display impact assessment records that more than half of ex-smokers in Great Britain who quit in the last five years used a vape in their last quit attempt, amounting to 2.7 million people.

Action on Smoking and Health called in its 2023 consultation response for prohibiting in-store promotion of e-cigarettes "with exemptions for age restricted specialist vape shops". Quotations attributed to the charity in this release are taken from its published response to the 11 August announcement and from its 2023 consultation response.

Ben Johnson is available for interview, comment and broadcast.

About Riot Labs

Riot Labs is a British vaping company, founded and headquartered in the UK, manufacturing e-liquids through its in-house flavour development operation, Fantasia Flavour House. It is a member of the UK Vaping Industry Association.

Contact

David Donaghy, Riot Press Office press@bemoreriot.com

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