Rishi Sunak said increasing the legal smoking age annually will be the “single biggest intervention in public health in a generation”. 

In his first interview since delivering his Tory conference speech in Manchester yesterday, the Prime Minister said the effective ban on smoking for young people was necessary because there was “no safe level of smoking”.

Mr Sunak pledged in his speech that the legal age for buying tobacco will rise every year from 2009. That will mean “a 14-year-old today will never legally be sold a cigarette” in England. 

Mr Sunak told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “Smoking is unequivocally the single biggest preventable cause of death, disability and illness in our society. 

“Everyone recognises this measure will be the single biggest intervention in public health in a generation.”

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