MPs are preparing to vote on a bill that aims to stop anyone born after 2009 from ever starting to smoke.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill is part of his plan to create the UK's first smoke-free generation in a major public health intervention.
Anyone turning 15 this year would be banned from buying cigarettes, while simultaneously trying to make vapes less appealing to children.
The vote, taking place on April 16, is a free vote, meaning Conservatives will not be ordered to vote in favour of it.
Although several Tory MPs don’t support the proposal, it’s expected to pass due to widespread Labour support.
The bill would make the sale of tobacco products, rather than the act of smoking, illegal, in a bid to protect young people’s long-term health, seeing as tobacco use is the UK's single biggest preventable cause of death, killing two-thirds of long-term users and causing 80,000 deaths every year.
Mr Sunak wants Generation Alpha to be the first smoke-free generation, but who does this refer to? Let’s take a closer look at the group.
Who is Generation Alpha?
Generation Alpha is the demographic succeeding Gen-Z and are born between the early 2010s and the mid-to-late 2020s. Typically, these children will have millennial parents.
Some notable features of the group include that they were children during the Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that they were born during a period with falling birth rates around the world.
Many, particularly in the UK, have also had childhoods dominated by technology, with widespread access to games and streaming services in a way that trumps the generations that came before.
This has led to some studies predicting screen addiction, mental health issues, and obesity, linked to Generation Alpha’s increased amount of screen time.
This digital immersion is also impacting future careers, with theories positing that the fact that Generation Alpha may have switched to remote classes at a young age or even started school entirely remotely means they will be more inclined to seek remote jobs.
There are also fears that the pandemic may have damaged young children’s abilities to learn social skills, with various reports from teachers in the US and the UK describing the upcoming generation as “impossible to teach“.
The BBC also recently published a study suggesting that Generation Alpha is learning consumerist spending habits from their millennial parents.
