Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond has voted in favour of a parliamentary bill aiming to stop anyone born after 2009 from ever being able to buy cigarettes.
Flick said she was happy to support the Tobacco and Vapes Bill earlier this week because the preventive public health benefits of such a move outweigh issues around the state intervening in people’s lives.
She also said medical experts were supportive because the proposed legislation would save lives, particularly in more deprived households where smoking is more prevalent.
“In nearly all cases I do not support banning things and I do understand the views of those who see this as the state creeping into how people decide to live,” said Flick.
“However, smoking is so bad, I think we need to look at this legislation as a groundbreaking preventive measure I believe the rest of the world will follow in the years to come anyway. We all know that it is young people who often try cigarettes and then end up addicted.
“Lighting up limits lives and it costs the NHS a fortune to treat those who become ill many years before their time with serious conditions like cancer, strokes, dementia and heart disease.
“If we can avoid this in future generations then I think we should. We have also been here before with the ban on smoking in enclosed spaces. Many of the same arguments about choice and the nanny state were made in 2007 but I do not think there is any appetite to reverse this and allow smoking again in pubs, trains and restaurants 17 years later because the public can see the huge public health benefit."
The Bill passed and will now continue its way through parliament. It proposes that no child turning 15 from this year on will ever legally be able to buy a cigarette or other forms of tobacco.
