British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Announces Plan To Gradually Ban Smoking

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced plans to eventually ban smoking by raising the legal age people can buy cigarettes by one year, every year.

It would mean someone who is currently 14 years old will never be legally be sold a cigarette.

The prime minister said the change would “save more lives than any other decision we could take.”

Sunak said at the conference for his Conservative Party in Manchester on Wednesday that his MPs would be given a free vote on the new law.

It means Tory MPs will not be ordered to back his plan if they do not want to.

The proposal mirrors the move in New Zealand, which recently imposed a new law which means tobacco cannot ever be sold to anybody born on or after January 1, 2009.