Under-18s will be banned from buying cigarettes in England and Wales from October 1, the public health minister Caroline Flint confirmed yesterday. In Scotland the ban comes into force in March.
Shops that break the new laws could lose their licence to sell tobacco for as long as a year. Lifting the legal age for buying tobacco from 16 to 18 brings the law into line with rules on the sale of alcohol.
A ban on smoking in enclosed public places comes into effect on July 1, with ministers setting aside £29.5m for local authorities to enforce the law. A council such as Manchester will receive £263,000. Smoking will be banned from NHS and government buildings from today.
The move came as Hazel Blears, the Labour chair, admitted that the loosening of the licensing laws would not halt Britain's drinking culture. She suggested Britons enjoy getting drunk because they enjoy risk-taking.
"I don't know whether we'll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine. Maybe it's our Anglo-Saxon mentality." She was Home Office minister when the drinking hours were introduced in 2005.
Anti-smoking campaigners welcomed lifting the legal age for buying cigarettes. Government statistics show that 9% of young people aged 11 to 15 smoke, down from 13% in 1996. Most buy cigarettes from small corner shops. A trading standards survey in 2005 found that 12% of shops were willing to sell tobacco to children clearly under 16.
Ms Flint said: "Smoking is dangerous at any age, but the younger people start, the more likely they are to become lifelong smokers and to die early.
"Someone who starts smoking aged 15 is three times more likely to die of cancer due to smoking than someone who starts in their late 20s. Buying cigarettes has been too easy for under-16s, and this is partly due to retailers selling tobacco to those under the legal age.
Deborah Arnott, director of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), welcomed the change but said the current fines on retailers were pitiful, with most given a verbal warning.
Only 23% of under-16s trying to buy tobacco found it difficult to do so, according to a previous Department of Health study. The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS), which represents around 32,500 shops, called on the government to invest heavily in a campaign to explain the change to consumers.
