Anyone in the UK born after 2008 will never be able to legally buy tobacco, after the Tobacco and Vapes Bill cleared parliament.
The health and social care secretary, Wes Streeting, said that the creation of a “smoke-free generation” was a “historic moment for the nation’s health” that would save lives and reduce pressure on the NHS.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill was put forward by the government in November 2024, after a plan to ban smoking among people born after a certain date was initially proposed by the Conservatives in 2023. The bill has now passed each parliamentary stage and awaits royal assent, after which it will become UK law.
The new legislation will raise the legal age for buying tobacco by one year every year, meaning that anyone born on or after 1 January 2009—people currently aged 17 or younger—will never be able to legally buy tobacco.
Streeting said, “Children in the UK will be part of the first smoke-free generation, protected from a lifetime of addiction and harm. Prevention is better than cure: this reform will save lives, ease pressure on the NHS, and build a healthier Britain.”
The bill also includes measures designed to reduce young people’s use of other products containing nicotine, including vapes. It will also grant ministers new powers to regulate the design and advertising of products containing nicotine, create a licensing scheme for selling them, and introduce further restrictions on where they can be used in public.
The creation of a “smoke-free generation” through a progressive age based ban on purchasing tobacco has been tried in other countries. New Zealand was the first to introduce a “generational” smoking ban in December 2022, but this was repealed by a new government in February 2024 to fund tax cuts.
The only country with such a ban currently in place is the Maldives, which passed legislation in November 2025 to prevent anyone born after 2006 from being able to buy, sell, or use tobacco.
Vaping and quitting
Doctors and campaigners backed the change to UK law. Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said, “This is a historic achievement that will shield our children from the devastating grip of tobacco addiction and help to put an end to cancers caused by smoking. The first smoke-free generation is now within reach.”
Nick Hopkinson, professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said that the passing of the bill was a “landmark moment” and “a huge step forward in public health and hopefully an example for the rest of the world.” He also praised the bill’s measures to curb youth vaping, which he said would help close “loopholes that have for too long allowed the industry to aggressively market these products to children” and would make enforcement “much more straightforward.”
Lion Shahab, professor and co-director of the Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group at University College London, praised the “world leading measures” on smoking, saying it meant that the UK “will have succeeded where other countries failed.” He said, “It will put the UK at the very forefront of the fight to eradicate one of the most harmful inventions of modern times and protect the future of the next generation.”
Shahab added that the measures on other products containing nicotine were “sensible,” but he emphasised the need to “acknowledge the role that vapes have played in reducing smoking prevalence in the UK . . . Legislation to protect youth should be balanced with the need to support smokers to quit, including with vapes.”
Although it has cleared parliament, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is not without opposition. Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, vowed earlier this year that a Reform government would repeal the ban.
