13th
September 2007
McNeil Welcomes
“Better Late than Never” Smoking Age Rise
The
MSP who successfully changed the law to give Ministers the power to raise the
smoking age, Greenock and Inverclyde’s Duncan McNeil, has welcomed today’s
overdue passing of the regulations which will raise the minimum age to 18.
Speaking
after MSPs passed the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005
(Variation of Age Limit for Sale of Tobacco etc. and Consequential
Modifications) Order 2007, Mr McNeil said:
“This,
of course, should have been done years ago, but the Liberals blocked it because
it was against their policy of letting 16-year-olds drink and smoke.
“Still,
better late than never and I’m delighted that the Parliament has moved to stop
young people making the worst mistake of their lives.
The younger you start smoking, the harder it is to stop.
By raising the minimum age to 18 – and properly enforcing it – it
will be harder for younger teenagers who might pass for 16, but not 18, to buy
cigarettes. It should make things
easier for shopkeepers too.
“We
have also ended the ludicrous anomaly whereby, for the past 18 months, the law
has criminalised a pensioner who smokes his pipe in his local, but said it is
perfectly okay for his 16-year-old granddaughter to have a cigarette while
waiting for the school bus.”
In
2005, Mr McNeil tabled amendments to the Smoking, Health & Social Care
(Scotland) Bill, which became the Smoking, Health and Social Care
(Scotland) Act 2005, to give Ministers powers to
vary by Order the legal minimum age at which tobacco could be bought.
Ministers
then charged an expert group, led by Dr Laurence Gruer OBE of NHS Health
Scotland, with examining the case for Ministers using these powers.
This Smoking Prevention Working Group reported in November 2006 and
recommended that the age indeed be raised from 16 to 18.
The
regulations passed today put this recommendation into effect, over two years
after the Smoking, Health and Social Care Act
was passed in June 2005. The main
provisions of the regulations will:
ENDS
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