UK MPs vote for smoking ban for those born after 2009

17 April, 2024

close-up of someone smoking a cigarette

Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban has passed its first hurdle in Parliament, despite opposition from some Conservative MPs.

Yesterday (April 16), the House Of Commons voted by 383 to 67 in favour of the Prime Minister’s plan to make it illegal for anyone born in 2009 or later to buy tobacco products in the UK (via the Guardian).

The legislation would effectively ban smoking for future generations by raising the legal age every year. It would not ban vaping but it would bring in more restrictions, especially on marketing vapes to young people.

Fifty-seven Tory MPs voted against the plans, including some who have links to the vaping industry. More than 100 Tory MPs abstained, but some will have been absent from the Commons for unrelated reasons.

Labour has backed the bill, while calling out the division within the Conservative Party over Sunak’s proposal.

Kemi Badenoch, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, is among the Tory MPs who voted against the legislation.

“I agree with his policy intentions BUT I have significant concerns and appreciate the PM making this a free vote,” she wrote on X/Twitter.

“It gives me the opportunity to express my personal view, outside collective responsibility. The principle of equality under the law is a fundamental one. It underpins many of my personal beliefs.”

Badenoch continued: “We should not treat legally competent adults differently in this way, where people born a day apart will have permanently different rights. Among other reasons it will create difficulties with enforcement. This burden will fall not on the state but on private businesses.

“Smoking rates are already declining significantly in the UK and I think there is more we can do to stop children taking up the habit. However, I do not support the approach this bill is taking and so will be voting against it.”

Former PM Liz Truss told the House Of Commons she was “very concerned” that the bill was “emblematic of a technocratic establishment in this country that wants to limit people’s freedom”.

Other ministers who voted against the plans included former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Andrew Griffith, Steve Baker, Julia Lopez, Lee Rowley, Alex Burghart, and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Jonathan Gullis.

Sunak’s plan for a smoking ban is modelled on proposals in New Zealand.

It is reported that tobacco companies have been lobbying politicians to vote against the bill, and instead support raising the smoking age from 18 to 21 in an attempt to avoid an outright ban.

Ahead of the vote, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins told the Commons that there was “no liberty in addiction”.

She explained: “Nicotine robs people of their freedom to choose. The vast majority of smokers start when they are young, and three-quarters say that if they could turn back the clock they would not have started.”

Labour brought up Tory opponents’ arguments to mock Sunak’s government, and mentioned former Tory ministers’ links to tobacco firms.

Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary, told the Commons: “Of all the policies the Conservatives have adopted from the Labour party in the past few years, nothing shows our dominance in the battle of ideas more than this latest capitulation.”

He added: “We happily align ourselves with big health in defence of the nation and we are only too happy to defend the Health Secretary against the siren voices of big tobacco we see gathered around our former Prime Minister in the corner of the chamber.

“A stopped clock is right twice a day, and I find myself agreeing with the former Prime Minister. This is absolutely an un-Conservative bill, it is a Labour bill, and we are delighted to see the government bring it forward.”

On X/Twitter, Streeting wrote: “We will give our full support to this Bill so that the next generation are even less likely to smoke than they are to vote Conservative.”

Ex-PM Boris Johnson, meanwhile, has criticised the bill – calling Sunak’s plans “absolutely nuts” (via Sky News).

On July 1, 2007, it became illegal to smoke in any pub, bar, restaurant, cafe, nightclub, gig venue and most workplaces and work vehicles, anywhere in the United Kingdom.

In January of this year, the UK government announced plans to ban disposable vapes in a bid to tackle the rise in youth vaping and protect children’s health (via GOV.UK).

It came after Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds banned disposable vapes from their festival sites the previous year.

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