The Labour party are considering bringing in the ban if elected to govern to help England become smokefree (Picture: Jason Oxenham/Getty Images)

A Labour government could introduce a New Zealand-style smoking ban – making it illegal for anyone born after 2008 to buy tobacco.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said the party would consult on phasing out the sale of cigarettes.

He said this ‘fresh radical thinking’ could help ease pressures on the NHS.

New Zealand is set to implement a new law later this year which stops anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes.

The legislation aims to stop the next generation from ever taking up smoking.

Mr Streeting says the party is also looking at a range of other measures to make smoking unaffordable and inaccessible.

An independent review, which was published this summer, recommended increasing the legal smoking age by one year every year to improve the country’s health.

Ministers have also previously set an objective for England to become completely smoke-free by 2030.

The new law could stop the next generation from ever taking up smoking (Picture: Shutterstock / pikselstock)

Mr Streeting told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: ‘One of the things that was recommended to the Government in one of the reviews was phasing out the sale of cigarettes altogether over time.

‘We’ll be consulting on that and a whole range of other measures.

‘The New Zealand Government is doing it. We want to see how that works, but I’m genuinely curious.’

He added that he hopes the legislation would have a positive benefit on the NHS.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said ‘fresh radical thinking’ was needed to ease the burden on the NHS (Picture: PA)

‘If we are going to get the NHS back on track we also need to focus on public health. And I’m curious to know where the voters are on this, where the country is and what appetite exists for change,’ he said.

‘So we are going to have to think radically. What the Government has done to the NHS is a disgrace.

‘It is going to take time to fix it and fresh radical thinking and that’s what Labour’s about.’

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The Government has also been warned they are set to miss their smokefree 2030 target, and if no new policy is enacted they won’t reach it until 2044.

Smoking rates in the UK have fallen from about half of the population in the 1970s to around just 15 per cent now. 

But use was found to have increased by 25 per cent among the under-30s in England during the Covid pandemic, which is the equivalent of more than 600,000 new smokers.

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‘The New Zealand government are doing it. We want to see how that works, but I’m genuinely curious.’