A health minister has pleaded with her husband to “stop vaping” on live television.
Maria Caulfield delivered the stark message as she was being interviewed on Sky News.
She said her husband, Steve, had taken up vaping to stop him smoking.
But she told presenter Kay Burley she had given up in her attempts to persuade him to give up vapes as well.
Burley asked her: “Have you told him what could potentially be happening to him?”
Caulfield said: “The only reason he stopped smoking was because he was able to go onto vapes, so it does have a positive impact in getting people off the most harmful substances.
“We don’t think it’s as dangerous [as cigarettes] but we don’t know the long-term effects.”
Later in the interview, Burley asked: “What are you going to say to your husband in order to make him stop vaping?”
Caulfield said: “I think I’ve given up on that one, to be honest.”
Burley replied: “Have you? Is he going to carry on vaping?”
The minister said: “He finds it stopped him smoking, and that’s had a significant financial impact as well because cigarettes are so expensive, whereas vaping is a much cheaper alternative.”
Asked again if her husband was “never going to stop vaping”, Caulfield said: “I can do certain things in this world, but stopping my husband vaping is not one of them.”
But pointing to a camera, Burley said: “You could look down that lens and tell him.”
The minister then looked at the camera and said: “Stop vaping.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced in the Budget earlier this month that the government would introduce a levy on vaping products for the first time.
A new law is also being brought in to ban children currently aged 15 and under from ever being able to buy tobacco products.