Government plans could stub out the beer garden cigarette
SMOKING could be banned in beer gardens, beaches and even some homes, under plans considered by ministers.
The independent review, ordered by the Health Secretary, has called for action to make smoking “obsolete” in two decades.
It also calls for e-cigarettes to be made available on prescription, the abolition of “duty-free” tobacco, and for the legal age to buy cigarettes to be raised by a year, every year, until no one can buy them. If implemented by 2026, it would mean anyone now under 15 would never be able to buy a cigarette.
Other plans include banning smoking from most new social housing developments, labelling each cigarette with the minutes of life it costs, and making them “dissuasive colours like green or brown”.
Anti-smoking campaigners and cancer charities called the proposals “ambitious”, but civil liberties campaigners and smokers’ rights groups described them as “crackpot ideas”.
Sources close to Sajid Javid indicated he was “minded against” plans to ban smoking at beer gardens and beaches and to increase the age of sale.
No 10 did not rule out a ban on smoking in beer gardens. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said the review “is a detailed piece of work which needs to be carefully considered”.
Dr Javed Khan, the former Barnardo’s chief, led the review. It follows goals to make England “smoke-free” by 2030 – defined as cutting rates to 5 per cent. Its advice will be considered ahead of a Government Health Disparities White Paper and tobacco control plan.
In the pandemic, the proportion of adults aged 18 to 24 that smoke rose from one in four to one in three. Almost six million people in England smoke, and tobacco remains the single biggest cause of preventable illness and death.
At the launch of the review, Maggie Throup, a health minister, said: “We want to see more smokers using vapes to quit and the Secretary of State has spoken of his desire to see these products routinely prescribed by the NHS.”
Dr Khan said that “we must do more to stop people taking up smoking, help those who already smoke and support those who are disproportionately impacted by smoking”.
Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “Mr Khan has managed to gather the most crackpot ideas from the fringes of nanny state extremism and compiled them in a single document.”
Prof Sir Chris Whitty said: “The cigarette industry lobbyists will try to make this a debate between health and freedom. It is the most dishonest debate you can possibly imagine.”
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, called the report “ambitious”, and said polling showed support for stronger government intervention to tackle smoking.