The Tories must share the blame for Labour’s illiberal smoking ban

When Rishi Sunak called a summer election, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill didn’t make the pile of ‘wash up’ legislation to be rushed through Parliament. His plans for a generational smoking ban, and a crackdown on vapes, were paused. But this was never going to be more than a brief delay.

Labour has used the King’s Speech today to confirm that it will see Sunak’s smoking ban through. Or rather, the party might argue that it’s reclaiming the idea. It was Labour, after all, that floated the policy before the Tories adopted it at their party conference last year. 

‘I was shocked when I saw that the Conservative party is nicking the Labour party’s plan for a progressive ban on tobacco,’ Wes Streeting, then-shadow health secretary, wrote in the Yorkshire Post earlier this year. ‘Indeed, when I first floated this proposal, Conservative MPs called it “nanny state” and “an attack on ordinary people and their culture”, and I was accused of “health fascism”.’