Labour government could introduce a New Zealand-style BAN on the sale of ... trends now

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A Labour government could introduce a New Zealand-style ban on the sale of cigarettes.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said the party would consult on phasing out the sale of cigarettes as part of 'fresh radical thinking' to ease pressures on the NHS.

New Zealand is set to implement new laws this year that will make it illegal for anyone born after 2008 to be sold tobacco.

In what is believed to be the first such legislation in the world, the annually rising legal smoking age is aimed at preventing the country's next generation from ever taking up smoking.

Mr Streeting said he was 'genuinely curious' about how the New Zealand law, which is being accompanied by a range of other measures to make smoking less affordable and accessible, will work.

It comes after a Government-commissioned independent review, published this summer, recommended increasing the legal smoking age from 18 by one year every year.

Ministers have previously set an objective for England to be smokefree by 2030.

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

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

'The New Zealand government are doing it. We want to see how that works. But I'm genuinely curious.

'If we're 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

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