The sale of cigarettes in England will be phased out in what has been billed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak as “the biggest public health intervention in a generation”. Sunak said there was “no safe level of smoking” and that his plan to raise the legal age of smoking annually by one year until no one could purchase tobacco products would tackle smoking, the leading cause of preventable ill health. Last year, the tobacco industry took more than £10bn in taxes, a drop of 3% from 2021-22, and smoking rates have been declining since the 1970s, but there are still more than six million smokers in the UK.
Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, indicated the party would back the government’s plans and said he had been lobbying for tobacco to gradually become illegal since before he became an MP. However, former prime minister, Liz Truss, said the Conservative Party should “stop banning things” and it is understood that she will not vote in favour of the legislation.
Critics have warned that the new regulations on smoking could create “massive black markets”. Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ rights group Forest, accused Sunak of ignoring the “principles of choice and personal responsibility”. However, Cancer Research UK’s Michelle Mitchell welcomed the proposals, while Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, and the British Medical Association both lent support to the measures.
The plan to raise the age at which people may legally smoke each year is similar to a proposal under consideration in New Zealand, where move to prevent anyone born after 2008 from buying tobacco has been canvassed. The legal smoking age is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Welsh government has said it plans to copy the ban while the Scottish government plans to make Scotland tobacco-free by 2034
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