Sunak plans to raise the legal smoking age in England each year until it applies to whole population

LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday proposed raising the legal age that people in England can buy cigarettes by one year, every year until it applies to the whole population.

The planned change will mean that “a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette,” Sunak said.

The proposed law change will make it an offense for anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009 to be sold tobacco products. That could almost completely phase out smoking in young people as soon as 2040, the government said. If Parliament approves the proposal, the legal change would only apply in England — not in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The current legal smoking age in England is from age 18.

Setting out his plans at the annual Conservative Party conference, Sunak said he wanted to “stop teenagers taking up cigarettes in the first place.”

“People take up cigarettes when they’re young. Four in five smokers have started by the time they’re 20,” he said. “Later, the vast majority try to quit … if we could break that cycle, if we could stop the start, then we would be on our way to ending the biggest cause of preventable death and disease in our country.”

The government said that smoking won’t be criminalized, and the phased changes mean that anyone who can legally buy cigarettes now won’t be prevented from doing so in the future.

Sunak also said his government would introduce measures to restrict the availability of vapes to children.

Officials will look into options for restricting the flavors of vapes and regulating their packaging and how they are displayed in stores so they are less appealing to young people.