THE minimum legal age for smoking is to be raised after almost a century from 16 to 18, the government will announce this week.

Caroline Flint, the public health minister, will announce that from October 2007 it will become illegal for 16 and 17-year-olds to buy cigarettes.

Flint will cite government research showing that across Britain about 450 children start smoking every day. Half of those who go on to become regular smokers will die from diseases caused by the habit.

The same research finds that about 20% of Britain’s 15-year-olds — 16% of boys and 25% of girls — are regular smokers. This is despite anti-smoking advertising campaigns, attempts to educate children at school about the dangers and the fact that it is illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone under 16.

Flint is expected to put much of the blame for the 114,000 deaths attributed to smoking each year on such illegal sales, because they hook children into the habit. The minister will say that the new law is particularly aimed at shopkeepers who sell cigarettes to children. Although it does not include any sanction against parents who allow their children to smoke or send them to buy cigarettes, Flint hopes that the changes will help to create a climate in which these things become unacceptable.

The move will be welcomed by health campaigners such as Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), but it has long made clear its belief that ministers should go much further.

Deborah Arnott, director of Ash, has called for further measures including a ban on the sale of cigarettes from vending machines. Almost a quarter of teenage smokers buy their cigarettes from these machines.

Arnott also wants big increases in the fines imposed on retailers who sell to under-age smokers. “We welcome the raising of the age of purchase, but it will only be effective if the law is properly enforced,” she said.

Under the existing law, shopkeepers who sell cigarettes to children under 16 can be fined up to £2,500. However, just 117 shops were prosecuted for selling to underage children last year and the average fine was £200.

The latest move follows this year’s vote by MPs to ban smoking in public, which will come into force on July 1 next year. At the same time they proposed bringing the smoking age into line with alcohol.

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