The legal age of sale for cigarettes in England should be raised by one year every year until eventually no one can buy tobacco products, a government-commissioned review said on Thursday.
Progressively increasing the minimum age from 18 was one of 15 recommendations in a review ordered by health minister Sajid Javid to help meet a target to be "smokefree" by 2030. Smokefree is defined as 5% smoking prevalence or less in England.
But some in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's party resent such moves as interfering in individuals' personal choices. The Conservative government recently delayed a policy to tackle obesity, calling into question how far it would go on such measures during a cost of living crisis.SMOKEFREE TARGET "Without immediate and sustained action, England will miss the smokefree target by many years and most likely decades," said the head of the review, Javed Khan, a former CEO of children's charity Barnardo's.
Kingsley Wheaton, chief marketing officer at British American Tobacco, welcomed the focus on vaping but warned that age increases could have unintended consequences.