LONDON — Britain is poised to launch a world-leading project to create a “smoke-free generation” by raising the age to legally buy cigarettes each year.
The legislation would ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2009 — and then every year, the legal age would rise so that the prohibition would follow the generation indefinitely. Vaping, however, would not be affected and instead would be subject to other restrictions.
Lawmakers voted 383 to 67 late Tuesday to advance the bill and give a second reading. Although the bill was widely praised by health experts and had the support of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the opposition Labour Party, Sunak faced rebellion from more libertarian-minded members of his party, who criticized the proposals as “unconservative,” a measure of a “nanny state.”
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Conservative lawmakers were granted a free vote, meaning they could vote with their personal conscience rather than follow the official party line.
Opponents, such as the smokers’ rights lobbying group FOREST, said the move risks creating a black market and will “treat future generations of adults like kids.” Prominent voices within the Conservative Party, including two of Sunak’s predecessors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, said the plans went against conservative values by limiting people’s personal freedoms.
The bill was a “virtue-signaling piece of legislation about protecting adults from themselves in the future,” Truss told Parliament during Tuesday’s debate.
Other high-profile Tories, including business secretary Kemi Badenoch, a Cabinet minister, also opposed the bill.
The plans were believed to have been inspired by similar policies proposed by New Zealand under former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, but the country’s new coalition government repealed the bill earlier this year.
Smoking itself would not be subject to fines. Older smokers would be allowed to continue to buy tobacco until they quit, or die.
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The legislation does seek to make vaping less attractive, by changing the packaging — from today’s candy-colored pastels — and by outlawing the popular disposable inhalers that can be found littering city sidewalks.
Sunak is spearheading the campaign, arguing that smoking kills tens of thousands of people each year, with most smokers starting in their teens.
As in much of the world, smoking rates have declined in Britain (as vaping has increased). About 1 out of every 8 people in Britain smoked last year — some 6.4 million people. Smoking rates among teens remain high, with more than 12 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds smoking in England.
Sunak, who does not drink alcohol or smoke, and who is reported to fast one day a week, argues that saving lives is the conservative thing to do.
Leading figures in his party have expressed their opposition, arguing that if people want to smoke, it’s not the government’s job to stop them.
Truss told the BBC, “We’re a free country. We shouldn’t be telling people not to smoke, and I worry about where it will lead.”
Johnson, another former prime minister from the Conservative Party, told a gathering in Canada last week that the proposed ban was “absolutely nuts.”
“We’re banning cigars. What is the point of banning - the party of Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars! Donnez-moi un break, as they say in Quebec. It’s just mad,” he said, using one of his trademark quasi-French phrases.
Chris Whitty, chief medical officer for England, who served under Johnson during the pandemic, says his old boss has got it wrong.
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“Those people who say it’s all about choice completely misunderstand smoking,” he told ITV on Tuesday, stressing that nicotine is highly addictive and that smokers find it extremely difficult to quit.
“Calling things names isn’t really a serious argument,” Whitty said, asking who would want to return to the “very, very much worse” health of British citizens in the 1940s, when smoking was rife.
In an opinion piece in the Guardian, Whitty charged that lawmakers were being aggressively lobbied by tobacco and vape companies to frame the issue as one of “choice” vs. “ban.”
Whitty said the tobacco industry was the only one to gain from cancers and heart disease. “They try to link their products to ‘choice’ despite the fact their sales are based on addiction.”
Other Conservative Party figures, including Kenneth Clarke, a former health minister who now serves in the House of Lords, worried the measure might be hard to enforce.
He imagined a time — decades to come — when “you will get to a stage where if you are 42 years of age, you will be able to buy them but someone aged 41 will not be allowed to.”
Clarke told the Telegraph newspaper, “Does that mean you will have to produce your birth certificate? It may prove very difficult to enforce. Future generations will have to see whether it works or not.”
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