Youth Access Prevention

• Smoking is a matter of informed adult choice. Children should not smoke and should be discouraged from doing so.
• It is now illegal in the UK to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18. The key issue is for retailers to establish age at point-of-sale before they allow a purchase to be made, accompanied by an effective enforcement regime.
• Retailers may have difficulty in assessing age without the use of ID cards. In this regard, the TMA is a principal stakeholder in CitizenCard, the UK’s leading proof-of-age scheme with 2 million cards issued. The TMA initiated and is the primary funder of the ‘No ID No Sale’ campaign (NINS) campaign operated by CitizenCard, which promotes all Proof of Age Standards Scheme (PASS) accredited Proof of Age / ID schemes.
• The NINS campaign has engaged more than 100,000 retailers nationwide and created a culture in which young people expect to be asked to prove their age, and in which retailers accept only the correct ID.
• The Government has introduced a form of ‘negative licensing*’ via the Criminal Justice & Immigration Act (CJIA) and the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act (RESA), which came into force on 1 April 2009. The TMA supports this legislation.
• The devolved administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland are also planning to introduce negative licensing and retailer registration schemes. We oppose a registration scheme, as we are concerned that this will not have any positive impact on reducing youth smoking. Instead, it will have a disproportionate impact on retail businesses and add significantly to their financial and administrative burden.
• TMA was encouraged by the inclusion of a provision, which prohibits the proxy purchase of tobacco products in the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Bill, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 27 January 2010.

* Negative Licensing – retailers would continue to be able to sell tobacco without being licensed, but if they are shown to flout the law on under-age sales, Trading Standards could apply sanctions, including a revocation of the right to sell tobacco.)