New Zealand lifts world’s first smoking ban aimed at preventing children from ever taking up smoking: plan to fund tax cuts scrapped – weeks after Rishi Sunak announced similar move

New Zealand scrapped its world’s first smoking ban in a bid to stop children from smoking.

The move to fund tax cuts comes just weeks after Rishi Sunak officially unveiled his bold plan to ban smoking in Britain.

New Zealand legislation, introduced under Jacinda Ardern’s previous government, would have banned the sale of cigarettes to people born after 2008 next year.

Under Sunak’s flagship proposal, which he called the “biggest public health intervention in a generation,” anyone born after 2009 would be banned from ever buying cigarettes.

If passed, the age at which people can buy tobacco would be raised by one year each year, putting legal smoking out of reach for anyone 14 or younger this year.

Christopher Luxon was sworn in as New Zealand’s prime minister on Monday. Luxon said the cigarette ban would “create an opportunity for the emergence of a largely tax-free black market.”

Charities and experts have called on politicians to implement the law quickly and not allow interest groups to undermine the goal of making Britain “smoke-free”.

But conservative think tanks branded Sunak’s plan an attack on people’s freedoms and warned that the ban – a replica of New Zealand’s ban – would only drive future smokers into the arms of the black market.

An expert warned that Sunak’s push for a smoke-free generation could still go up in smoke.

Richard Murray, director of health and care charity The King’s Fund, said: “Passing the Smoking Ban Bill will be an important milestone and the Government must then have the courage to implement the smoking ban quickly.”

“Disappointingly, we have recently seen other measures to protect people from disease, such as the ban on junk food advertising to combat obesity, have been included in the law, but their implementation has been delayed.”

Smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in New Zealand and health experts have spoken out against the sudden reversal.

Anti-smoking group Health Coalition Aotearoa – the Maori name for New Zealand – said withdrawing the policy was an insult to the country.

“This is a huge loss for public health and a huge gain for the tobacco industry, whose profits will soar at the expense of Kiwi lives,” the group said in a statement.

Christopher Luxon was sworn in as New Zealand’s prime minister on Monday and said improving the economy was his top priority.

The 53-year-old former businessman leads a conservative coalition after his National Party reached an agreement with two smaller parties on Friday following last month’s general election.

Luxon said the cigarette ban would “create an opportunity for the emergence of a largely tax-free black market.”

The law, which was adopted in 2022, was praised around the world and included measures such as reducing the nicotine content in cigarettes and limiting the number of tobacco outlets.

Modeling showed that smoking ban laws could have saved up to 5,000 lives each year.

Under Sunak’s flagship proposal, which he called the “biggest public health intervention in a generation,” anyone born after 2009 would be banned from ever buying cigarettes.

However, newsagents and shopkeepers criticized the loss of income caused by the Smokefree measures, even when government subsidies were taken into account.

The National Party did not discuss smoking ban laws during the election campaign.

The announcement that the government will repeal the laws was made on Saturday by the new finance minister, Nicola Willis.

Willis said the other parties in the coalition – the libertarian ACT and the populist New Zealand First – were “pushing” for the U-turn.

Despite the election victory, the centre-right National Party has been struggling for weeks with political negotiations to form a government together with the two smaller parties.

The agreement to form a government with these parties was only agreed six weeks after the election on Friday, after which the government was sworn in on Monday.

New Zealand First was the only party to campaign for the repeal of smoking laws.