There are worries Keir Starmer's plan to phase out smoking will fuel the illicit trade (Image: BBC / Yui Mok/PA Wire)
Brits are worried the Government’s plan to ban anyone born after 2008 from buying tobacco means adults will turn to criminal gangs. The depth of anxiety about the generational ban is laid bare in new polling which found 79% of respondents said people were right to be concerned.
Just 11% of the more than 2,000 people polled by Whitestone Insight said people were not right to worry. There is also major scepticism about whether the plan – which will eventually require shopkeepers to deny tobacco to some middle-aged adults but not to those born one year earlier – is workable.
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Nearly half (48%) say it will be unworkable while just under four in 10 (38%) expect it will be possible to implement the policy. The polling comes as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is scrutinised by Parliament.
David Campbell Bannerman, chairman of The Freedom Association, which commissioned the polling, said: “The public sense the injustice and impracticality of the generational smoking ban. You don’t have to like smoking to agree this is not respecting people’s freedoms.
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“They may want to see an end to smoking but they do not think this is the way to do it. They have seen through the spin and grasp the sheer absurdity of a future world where a 47-year-old can legally purchase tobacco but his 45-year-old brother cannot.
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“And who is going to enforce this most virtue-signalling of laws? Harrased shop assistants? The police largely ignore shoplifting today – can they be expected to demand that smokers produce their ID papers.”
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He added: “It is time for Sir Keir to perform one of his well practised U-turns and ditch this farcical nonsense.”
Reform UK MP Lee Anderson said: “This is all about Government control over our personal lives — how we spend our money and the choices we make. It may start with smoking, but it won’t stop there.
“You’d think this disastrous Labour Government, facing a shrinking economy, record border crossings, and tens of thousands of hardworking Britons leaving each year, would have bigger priorities than stripping away our freedoms.”
The polling found evidence large numbers of people are not opposed to the ban in principle but doubt whether it will achieve its aims and if it is worth pressing ahead.
Two-thirds of respondents said they supported the “policy” with just 21% opposed. But 44% agreed it “will cause a lot more trouble than it’s worth, cost the Government many millions of pounds in lost tax revenue and should be abandoned now” – while only 34% disagreed.
Those most likely to support the abandonment of the plan were people who voted Reform (60%) or Conservative (53%) at the last election.
People were split on whether it was “reasonable or not to expect sales people in shops to have to enforce the ban by requesting ID from people in their 30s and 40s”.
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Maxwell Marlow, of the Adam Smith Institute, said: “This polling shows that the public can see straight through this heavy-handed smoking ban. Brits understand that banning cigarettes will not reduce the smoking rate, but it will fuel the black market and erode our treasured civil liberties.
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“Rather than wasting time on performative laws that are impossible to enforce, the government should focus on helping people quit smoking voluntarily and incentivising safer alternatives such as e-cigarettes – not by banning advertising for legal products. People don’t want a nanny state that polices their personal choices - they want a government that leaves them alone and focuses on boosting growth and opportunity.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death, disability and ill health, claiming the lives of around 80,000 people a year in the UK. It also costs the economy ￡21.3billion a year through lost productivity and care costs.
“The Tobacco and Vapes Bill will protect future generations from the harms of tobacco and nicotine, saving thousands of lives and easing pressures on the NHS. Through our 10-year health plan, we will shift from sickness to prevention, building a healthier society and a healthy economy.”