Smoking ban deputy seeks age limit rise

Peter Roffey, the former Health president whose committee introduced the ban on smoking indoors in public places nearly 20 years ago, is raising an amendment to a debate seeking to ban smoking in vehicles carrying children.

He wants the States to agree to ask Health & Social Care to ‘investigate the possibility of increasing the age of persons to whom it is legal to sell tobacco or tobacco products’.

If members support the move, the next HSC would have to report back to the States with proposals by the end of 2025.

Deputy Roffey said that rather than simply proposing raising the age, he and seconder Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez had asked for an investigation to allow a proper consultation within the community.

‘It is unusual for people to take up smoking for the first time at a mature age,’ he said.

‘Therefore reducing smoking among the young would be of great benefit in further reducing the overall prevalence of smoking in Guernsey.

‘While making it illegal to sell tobacco to young adults would not necessarily stop them accessing it, it would probably make it less readily availability to this age group.’

MPs in the UK have recently voted to back government plans to create a “smoke-free generation” which will see the legal age for cigarette sales – currently 18 – increase by one year every year, meaning that people born in or after 2009 will never be able to legally buy cigarettes.

Deputy Roffey said this was one possible approach a change in the law in Guernsey could take.

‘As it has been approved in principle in the UK it would be perverse if we don’t look at it,’ he said. ‘I would have some reservations, as the legislation may be a little over the top.

Statistics show that if someone has not started smoking by age 25 they are very unlikely to ever start, he said.

‘We have of course consulted with HSC and they are broadly supportive,’ he said.

'As to other deputies I’m not really sure, there may be a libertarian wing who are against it, but I like to think of myself as a libertarian, and I believe this is a special case, as most adults who smoke do so as it’s addictive and wish they had never started.’