Health charities welcome Sunak’s plan to curb smoking in England

Banning growing numbers of people in England from buying cigarettes is a bold move that will save lives and create the country’s first “smokefree generation”, health charities have said.

The plan, first reported in the Guardian and which Rishi Sunak formally unveiled in his leader’s speech at the Conservative party’s annual conference, will also help relieve the strain on the NHS, experts said.

Under the plan, everyone who is 14 or younger today will not legally be able to buy cigarettes ever during their lives as the smoking age is raised by one year every year, subject to MPs’ approval.

“Raising the age of sale on tobacco products is a critical step on the road to creating the first ever smokefree generation. If implemented, the prime minister will deserve great credit for putting the health of UK citizens ahead of the interests of the tobacco lobby,” said Michelle Mitchell, the chief executive of Cancer Research UK.

Sarah Woolnough, the chief executive of Asthma + Lung UK, hailed it as “an incredibly positive step forward, which will protect the next generation from developing lung conditions caused by this deadly addiction.

“Smoking remains the biggest cause of lung disease deaths in the UK, with tobacco costing the NHS £2.5bn every year and £1.2bn in social care costs [in England].”

New Zealand recently became the first country in the world to bring in the same policy. The UK will follow suit from 2027, as long as MPs back the tough measure, on which they will be given a free vote.

Boris Johnson was urged to adopt annual rises in the legal age of buying tobacco in June 2022 when he was prime minister by Dr Javed Khan, whom he had commissioned to investigate how to reduce smoking and its ruinous effects on health.

Khan’s review (pdf) recommended as one of its four key policy changes “increasing the age of sale from 18, by one year, every year until no one can buy a tobacco product in this country”. However, Johnson did not act on Khan’s recommendation.

Sunak also told delegates that he planned to restrict the availability of vapes to young people. Health experts are concerned that growing numbers of under-18s are using them and that some begin doing so after trying flavoured vapes.

Steve Brine, the Conservative MP who chairs the Commons health and social care committee, who is also a former public health minister, said: “I am fully supportive of moves toward a smoke-free generation. It will save tens of thousands of lives, given that smoking remains the biggest preventable killer in our country today, and is the embodiment of a long-term decision.”

A recent report by Frontier Economics found that 184,000 people in Britain will be diagnosed with a preventable cancer, with smoking the main cause, with those cases costing the country £78bn.