A 14 year-old in England will never be able to legally smoke under proposals revealed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The proposed law, to be voted on by Parliament, will annually raise the age of legal purchase of cigarettes from the current 18-years by one additional year every 12 months.
It will see England follow in the footsteps of New Zealand which last year effectively made the sale cigarettes illegal to people born after 2009.
Last year a major review led by Dr Javed Khan backed England following in the footsteps of New Zealand.
Dr Khan recommended ‘increasing the age of sale from 18, by one year, every year until no-one can buy a tobacco product in this country’.
A 14 year-old in England will never be able to legally smoke under proposals revealed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
In his Government-commissioned report published in June 2022, Dr Khan said that without urgent action, England would miss the 2030 target by at least seven years, with the poorest areas not meeting it until 2044.
He put the annual cost to society of smoking at about £17billion – £2.4billion to the NHS alone.
The legal age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products in England and Wales is 18, having been raised from 16 in 2007 by the previous Labour government.
Announcing the policy during his speech at the Conservatie Party conference in Manchester Mr Sunak acknowledged it had been a difficult decision to support the policy.
But he added it was the right decision for the nation’s children.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
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