Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department plans to provide guidance to retailers on preventing proxy sales of tobacco products under proposals for a generational ban on the sale of those products.

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 plans to provide guidance for retailers on the smokefree generation proposal before it begins to take effect on 1 January 2027.