I went into one of our well-known discount stores the other day and was surprised to see at the checkout brightly coloured vapes for sale with flavours like candy floss and bubble-gum.

For a long time, health experts have said sweets shouldn’t be at the checkout as they could tempt youngsters but now, we have sweet tasting vapes to tempt them instead. These vapes are at children’s eye level and look very much like sweets with colourful packaging and sweet like flavours.

I’m sure some adults like smoking these flavours but, in my mind, they appear to be aimed at children. The manufacturers and retailers deny this but why then come up with flavours like sweet cherry or candy floss? The products are also often sold in bright packaging, sometimes featuring cartoon characters. Of course, they are going to tempt kids!

When vapes arrived as a replacement for smoking they were haled as a great way of weaning people off cigarettes and to some extent they have.

The thing is those who vape are still breathing in chemicals and it can’t be good for them. What seemed harmless to begin with is now causing problems to people’s lungs and breathing.

Now ministers are considering reducing the range of vape flavours and banning disposable vapes altogether to lessen their popularity with children.

The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak even said he was worried his own daughters could be targeted by the vaping industry.

In my opinion a crackdown can’t come soon enough. This week the story of a 12-year-old girl who suffered lung collapse and spent four days in an induced coma emerged. She started vaping at the age of just 9 years old!

Sarah Griffin had asthma and was a heavy vaper when she was rushed into hospital, her mum said she feared she was going to lose her daughter. She’s not the only one and the sooner this can be cracked down on the better. The retailers could and should remove them straight away and put them in less visible places.

It's not just the government looking to act, the Labour party would too. The shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has said a Labour government would come down like a tonne of bricks on vaping companies pushing flavours like rainbow burst at children.

With both parties in agreement, I say get on with it and get on with it quickly before more children end up like Sarah.

We must also do more to discourage people from smoking too, it’s not cool, it stinks, and it can slowly kill you.

Why would you want to start? Peer pressure I guess and that’s just what’s happening with vaping too.

I grew up around my father smoking and he would roll his own, one day when mum was dishing up Sunday dinner, she knocked an ashtray over, and the contents ended up all over our food. It was a disgusting sight and I think that’s what put me off smoking for life.

I’ve never smoked or vaped so I can’t comment on how difficult it is to give up, what we need to do is make both as unattractive as possible to discourage people/children from starting in the first place.

I long for a time when we are smoke and vape free and we don’t have to breath in someone else’s second-hand smoke or sweet smelling vape.

Let’s start by removing these sweet flavoured vapes from our checkouts!