Business secretary Kemi Badenoch has said she will be voting against Rishi Sunak’s flagship plan to ban young people from ever smoking.
Ahead of a vote on Tuesday night, Ms Badenoch announced her decision on social media, saying: “We should not treat legally competent adults differently in this way, where people born a day apart will have permanently different rights.”
She added: “I do not support the approach this bill is taking and so will be voting against it.”
The cabinet minister’s decision comes after hours of speculation as to whether or not she would back the prime minister’s public health proposals.
There have been divisions within the Conservative Party over the bill as senior Tories from the right of the party – including former prime minister Liz Truss – have expressed concerns over the workability of the legislation and its impingement on personal freedom.
Mr Sunak earlier urged his cabinet to think of “future generations” and back the plan as he sought to avoid humiliation at the hands of his own party.
No 10 said the prime minister believes that building “a better future for our children” involves tackling the habit, which costs 80,000 lives a year.
But he is braced for more than 50 Tory MPs to defy his call and vote against the plans, which would prevent those born after 1 January 2009 from ever buying cigarettes.
The legislation would not ban smoking outright as anyone who can legally buy tobacco now will be able to continue to do so if the Bill becomes law.
Ms Badenoch added that the bill will “create difficulties with enforcement” and “the burden will fall not on the state but on private businesses”.
Last week another former prime minister, Boris Johnson, described the plan as “nuts”, while Mr Sunak’s predecessor Lis Truss denounced her successor’s plan as a “virtue-signalling piece of legislation about protecting adults from themselves in the future”.
The chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty said cigarettes were a product “designed to take your choice away” through addiction.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is a really serious health problem. And the reason this is doubly problematic is that the majority, the great majority, of smokers wish they had never started, but they become addicted at an early age and then they’re trapped and their choice has been taken away by that addiction.
“This is one of the reasons why the argument that ‘if you’re pro-choice, you’re in favour of cigarettes’ is so surprising, because this is a product which is designed to take your choice away from you.”
The government has decided not to whip the vote, saying it is a matter of conscience, but it is expected to pass as it has been backed by Labour.
