Smoking age in UK to ‘go up by a year every year’ | UK News

The smoking age is to go up by a year every year, and new tougher rules on vaping are to be introduced, Rishi Sunak has announced today.

The tougher tobacco sale laws would mean a 14-year-old today will ‘never legally be sold a cigarette’ as the smoking age limit is gradually increased from 18.

In the incremental New Zealand-style ban, the prime minister told Tory conference-goers doing so would help ease the pressure on the NHS.

To applause from party members, Sunak said the change would ‘save more lives than any other decision we could take’ as 64,000 people a year currently die from smoking.

The Tory leader denied it would ‘take away the rights of anyone to smoke who currently does’.

Sunak said from the conference in Manchester: ‘If we are to do the right thing for our kids, we must try and stop teenagers taking up cigarettes in the first place.

‘Because without a significant change, thousands of children will start smoking in the coming years and have their lives cut short as a result.’

He added: ‘I propose that in future we raise the smoking age by one year every year.

‘That means a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette and that they and their generation can grow up smoke-free.’

It will be a ‘free’ vote in Parliament, meaning MPs can vote with their own preference rather than be whipped into a certain position by party leaders.

If passed, this would make Britain the first country in Europe to ban cigarette sales to young people.

Sunak added: ‘We have a chance to cut cancer deaths by a quarter, significantly ease those pressures and protect our children, and we should take it.’

Smoking costs health services £17,000,000,000 a year, the PM said.

He has also announced a new crackdown on vaping, vowing to scrutinise ‘flavours, packaging, displays and disposable vapes’.

Adding that data suggests one in five children now use e-cigarettes, Sunak said: ‘That is shocking and wrong. And we must act before it becomes endemic.’

Health experts and consumer officials have become increasingly worried that vapes are being marketed with children in mind; think fruity flavours and colourful packaging.

Hundreds of vapes sold illegally to minors – some as young as 12 – were seized by Trading Standards teams in England and Wales across 2021.

‘We must put the next generation first,’ Sunak added, ‘and that is what I will do.’

The number of smokers has been declining since the 1970s. Around 6,400,000 people in the UK smoke, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Around one in 10 18 to 24-year-olds are smokes, the statistics agency says.

The age limit for buying cigarettes has been 18 since 2007. That same year, decades of smoke-filled pubs and restaurants came to an end when smoking in enclosed public spaces was outlawed.

In New Zealand, no one born on or after January 1, 2009, can legally buy tobacco.

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