MPs vote for cigarette ban for those born after 2009
Bill clears its first hurdle by 383 to 67... amid nanny-state claims
PLANS to ban young people from ever being able to smoke tobacco legally have cleared their first hurdle at Westminster.
MPs voted 383 to 67, a majority of 316, to give the Tobacco and Vapes Bill a second reading.
The Bill will ban tobacco sales to anyone born on, or after, January 1, 2009 – meaning children aged 15 or younger today will never legally be sold a cigarette.
While the legislation voted on applies to England, the rules in Scotland will be changed to mirror those south of the Border, with Holyrood set to bring in the ban under devolved environmental powers.
Conservative MPs were given a free vote on the Bill, meaning those who went against the Government’s position will not face punishment.
This allowed serving ministers, including Business Secretary and future Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch, to publicly reveal they would vote to reject it.
In total, 59 Tories voted against the proposals while 106 – including several Cabinet ministers – abstained, including Commons Leader Penny
Mordaunt. Sources said she sees the Bill as ‘unworkable’.
While some were unable to vote due to foreign travel, including Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the scale of abstentions means just over half of Tory MPs, 180, backed the Bill.
Six ministers voted against it, along with a number of senior Tories such as Liz Truss, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman.
But Labour and other opposition parties – including the Liberal Democrats, who want to legalise cannabis – backed the Bill, allowing it to pass comfortably.
The legislation also gives the Government powers to tackle youth vaping, with restrictions on flavours and new rules on packaging and selling vapes.
Ex-PM Ms Truss branded it a ‘virtue-signalling piece of legislation’ which she said was the result of a ‘technocratic establishment’ that is aiming to ‘limit people’s freedom’.
She said there were enough ‘finger-wagging, nannying control freaks’ on the Opposition benches willing to support the proposals, urging Tories to ‘stand by our principles and our ideals’.
Tory former cabinet minister Sir Jake Berry said the Government is ‘addicted’ to telling people what to do.
He told the Commons: ‘If you believe in freedom, you have to accept that people have to be free to make bad decisions, as well as good decisions.
‘[Because] if we live in a society where the only decisions we are free to make are ones that the Government tells us we’re free to make, you may as well live in a socialist society, you may as well live in Russia, you may as well live in China.’
And an hour before the vote last night, Mrs Badenoch said that while she thinks smoking is an ‘unpleasant habit’ that is ‘costly for both the individual and society’, she would vote against. She wrote on Twitter/ X: ‘The principle of equality under the law is a fundamental one ... 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.’
She was joined by Tory former minister Mr Jenrick, also seen as a potential leadership contender, who said a phased ban on smoking would be ‘an affront’ to ‘the principle of equality under the law’.
Downing Street had told MPs to ‘vote with their conscience’, but said: ‘If we want to build a better future for our children, we need to tackle the single biggest entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability and death, which is smoking.’
Last night a poll found that two thirds of Tory voters support a smoking ban, with support higher among older adults, according to the Savanta survey.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said that while she understood concerns about the Government banning things, ‘there is no liberty in addiction’.
‘Finger-wagging control freaks’