Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed generational ban on the sale of tobacco products on trading standards.

Smoking is responsible for around 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom and causes around one in four cancer deaths in the UK. It also costs our country £17 billion a year and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service.

This is why the Government is planning to create a smokefree generation by bringing forward legislation so that children turning 14 years old or younger this year will never be legally sold tobacco products.

The Government is providing an additional £30 million a year for enforcement agencies such as trading standards, Border Force and HM Revenue and Customs to implement and enforce the law. The Smokefree generation consultation also proposes to introduce new powers for local authorities to issue on-the-spot fines, otherwise known as fixed penalty notices.

We will publish our Impact Assessment in due course.