After years of delays, debate and thousands of public submissions, the Portfolio Committee on Health on Wednesday voted in favour of the desirability of the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill. However, several MPs made it clear their support is dependent on significant amendments, particularly around differentiating between combustible cigarettes and non-combustible nicotine products.
Ten votes from the ANC, DA, ActionSA, EFF and MK Party supported moving the Bill forward, while the Freedom Front Plus was the only party to vote against the motion.
While the vote allows the Bill to proceed to detailed consideration, MPs warned that its final form must address concerns raised during public hearings, including product differentiation, penalties, illicit trade, enforcement and the impact on businesses and consumers.
Committee chairperson Faith Muthambi said the consultation process on the Bill — which she described as one of the most thoroughly consulted pieces of health legislation Parliament has endured — highlighted an important issue that could not be ignored.
“It has become unmistakably, through the scientific submission and through our own deliberations as a committee, that not all tobacco and nicotine products carry the same risk.”
“I’m glad also to report that the committee has endorsed the need for differentiation and I’m pleased that the Department of Health, through its responses to public comments in March 2026, has also officially accepted the differentiation as a guiding principle,” she said.
Muthambi explained the Bill in its current form treated combustible and non-combustible products through the same regulatory approach, but this would now be addressed during a clause-by-clause process.
“We have now learned it is not the best approach for our public,” she said.
She said South Africa had an opportunity to create a regulatory framework based on evidence and proportionality.
“No country on this continent has yet built a tobacco nicotine framework that is generally risk proportionate, evidence-based in the future to prove. Then our country can be the first and the world is watching on how we do it,” she said.
The committee conducted hearings in 27 municipalities across all nine provinces, with almost 7,900 people attending, 1,113 oral submissions being made and about 40,000 written submissions received.
With the desirability motion approved, the Bill now moves to clause-by-clause deliberations where MPs will consider amendments before the committee finalises its report and sends it to the National Assembly for further debate.
Muthambi said the responsibility now rested with the committee to ensure the final legislation was workable.
“Now the Bill is in our court. It’s our responsibility that whatever we regulate on, facilitated with the clause by clause process, will be able to then make sure that this Bill is enforceable at the end of the day and make sure that it achieves the desired outcome,” she said.
ActionSA’s Kgosi Letlape also supported the motion, saying regulation must recognise harm reduction principles.
“We see the need for truthful communication based on science and not morality and foster greater education to promote informed decision-making.”
Letlape warned against treating all products the same, saying: “We should reject the notion that harm is harm, a concept that dismisses the responsibility to reduce harm reduction when it cannot be completely eliminated.”
The DA raised concerns about several provisions, including what it described as the “arbitrary grouping” of products with different risk profiles.
“The issues that are of concern are the arbitrary grouping of nicotine-based and non-nicotine-based products as these have very different health risks, and therefore we need to apply our minds how we are going to separate these two products from each other,” said MP Michele Clarke.
The party also raised concerns around illicit trade, plain packaging, advertising restrictions, penalties and proposed smoking bans.
The EFF supported the Bill but echoed calls for a science-based approach.
“The Bill must explicitly distinguish between combustible and non-combustible products. Not all tobacco and nicotine products carry the same risk profile,” EFF MP Naledi Chirwa-Mpungose said.
She said regulation should not follow a one-size-fits-all approach.
“Parliament must ensure that regulation is guided by evidence and not by a one-size-fits-all approach,” she said.
MK Party’s Moshome Motubatse supported moving forward with the Bill but emphasised that significant amendments were required.
“The question before us today is not whether tobacco and nicotine products should be regulated. There is broad consensus that regulation is necessary to protect public health, reduce youth access, and ensure accountability within the industry. The question is whether Parliament should proceed with legislation and improve it through a legislative process. On that question, the answer is yes,” he said.
In its current form Bill seeks to tighten regulations on smoking and vaping by banning indoor smoking and vaping in public spaces, enforcing plain packaging with graphic health warnings, removing all retail product displays, and prohibiting advertising, sponsorships, and promotion of tobacco and e-cigarette products.
It also restricts sales through vending machines, including at certain private spaces where children or non-smokers are present, while treating vaping products the same as traditional cigarettes. Proposed penalties include lengthy jail terms.