How the generational smoking ban came to pass

Legislation to prohibit the sale of tobacco to anyone born from 2009 onwards is now on the statute books and will come into force from January 2027. First introduced by Rishi Sunak when he was prime minister, the legislation received royal assent under a Labour government.

Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice called the tobacco-free generation policy ‘a legacy that many a prime minister would die for’. Speaking on the BBC after the local elections in May 2024 he urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to wait to call the election until the legislation had passed. The PM didn’t listen to Curtice, but after the election the legislation was reintroduced by the incoming Labour government. That Labour should pick up the legislation was no surprise, as it had swiftly moved to support the policy when Sunak first announced it. What was initially surprising was that Sunak should have espoused it in the first place.

The tobacco-free generation policy was only put forward to the prime minister as a long shot when he was considering radical ideas for the 2023 Conservative party conference. Having examined it in detail he decided to go ahead convinced that, as he said in his conference speech, it ‘will save more lives than any other decision we could take’. Confident he could convince his party of its importance, Sunak allowed a free vote, meaning parliamentarians could vote with their conscience rather than on party lines. In the past two decades this has become a tradition for governments with smoking legislation. It was first used for the smoking ban legislation in 2006, and later for extending the ban to cars carrying children and removing colourful branding from cigarette packs under the Coalition government in 2014.

The policy had been included in the 2022 Khan review for the Department of Health and Social Care about how to end smoking, but its origins go back a decade earlier. This landmark policy was first proposed in 2012 at a three-day meeting of global experts in tobacco control brought together in Ann Arbor, Michigan to investigate ‘endgame’ strategies to bring the tobacco epidemic to a close. Everyone at the meeting, including myself, was passionate about ending smoking, and keen to investigate any option for achieving this end, however novel or outlandish. The tobacco-free generation proposal was dreamt up by a British Professor of Mathematics, Jon Berrick, in collaboration with a group of doctors in Singapore. At the time I dismissed this idea out of hand, failing to see how it would work in the real world for those already addicted to smoking.

Furthermore, while the evidence shows that the policy would drastically reduce the number of new smokers, there would still be significant numbers who slip through the net. When the age of sale was raised from 16 to 18 in 2007, smoking prevalence in this age group reduced by 30%, but that meant significant numbers would still continue to join the reservoir of six million adult smokers legally able to buy tobacco. So, hand in hand with the generational smoking ban, smokers – both current and future – will need effective support to be weaned off their lethal habit.

The widely available smoking cessation options available in 2012 were not nearly effective enough. The devastation wrought by smoking and the difficulty heavily addicted smokers have in quitting is demonstrated by those like my friend Lorraine. She grew up in a family where everyone smoked and she was the exception in being able to quit unscathed. Smoking has devastated her family. Her father died aged 64 killed by a stroke; her mother of emphysema aged 66; her brother Georgie died of lung cancer aged 50 and her brother Sean of throat cancer aged 55. All were still smokers when they died. Quitting was not an option they were able to achieve. They needed an alternative which could substitute for smoking.

That’s the role e-cigarettes have come to play since 2012. Initially growth was slow: in 2010 only 9% of smokers had ever vaped and 38% had never even heard of e-cigarettes. But by 2012, the market had begun to grow exponentially, and by 2013 over one million people adults were vaping, the vast majority of whom were smokers or ex-smokers.

By 2013 vapes became the most used and most effective widely available quitting aid, helping millions of smokers to quit smoking. However, it was a wild west, with limited regulation of e-cigarette design and promotion allowing underage vaping to get out of control. The growth in use of vapes by adult smokers to quit – a positive outcome – was followed by very unwelcome growth in their use by children and young people. It is vital that this is addressed. ASH, the medical profession, local government, teachers, members of parliament, academics and health charities have long called for stronger regulation, but serious action has been slow and many loopholes remain.

Some measures have already been introduced, including funding to crack down on illegal sales to children and a ban on disposable vapes. The Tobacco and Vapes Act envisages far stricter regulatory powers to curb youth vaping while continuing to support vapes as a quitting aid for adults, and it is vital this is achieved without any undue delay. This includes banning advertising and strictly regulating the child-friendly designs and promotions that currently allow vapes to look like sweets and toys and to be sold widely.

Selling legal but very addictive products is extremely profitable, and despite high taxes, tobacco has the largest profit margins of any industry. But this is an industry living on borrowed time, clinging to its legal status despite incontrovertible proof that cigarettes are lethal when used as intended. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable premature death globally, and in the UK alone kills tens of thousands of people annually with 30 times as many suffering diseases caused by smoking. The tobacco-free generation legislation, coupled with greater help for smokers to quit, will bring to an end the longest lasting and most deadly epidemic in British history. To paraphrase Sir John Curtice, that’s a legacy any government can be proud of.