Quarter of shops break law by selling cigarettes to children

More than 800 shops have been subject to "test purchasing" stings by trading standards teams across the country since October 2007, when the minimum cigarettes sales age was increased from 16 to 18.

The Scotsman has found that 24 per cent of those targeted sold cigarettes to youngsters. The children used in the stings were as young as 14 – four years below the minimum age for sales.

Several councils are planning to launch fresh operations this year, and shopkeepers who flout the law face on-the-spot fines and being barred from selling cigarettes under proposed new legislation to be launched this spring.

Shopkeepers were most willing to sell cigarettes to children in Renfrewshire, where two-thirds of shops failed the test.

A 15-year-old girl used for test purchasing told The Scotsman she was stunned by how easy it was for her to buy cigarettes.

"It got me thinking that if I could get cigarettes, then I could definitely buy drink as well," she said. "I would always have been scared in the past to try to buy alcohol but I wouldn't be frightened now.

"That's a really bad thing for young people to realise. Selling one age-restricted product opens the door to selling all the others.

" It was shocking because I was buying things that it was obvious that only a really young person would get. I was buying a 10p bag of Haribo and then being sold a packet of ten Mayfair."

Several councils said they were ready to launch new test purchasing schemes – a number of them for the first time – after the Scottish Government allocated 1.5 million to tackle illicit sales of tobacco and the enforcement of tobacco sale law.

A spokesman for East Ayrshire Council said: "We're launching our cigarette test purchasing programme in January. We've got seven prospective volunteers ranging from 15 to 16."

David Thompson, chairman of the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland, described the test purchasing results from some local authorities as "worrying" and he feared some councils and retailers would "let up on the message".

He went on: "Where there are sustained efforts within the council over proof-of-age schemes and test purchasing, you see the trend (of shops selling cigarettes to children] coming down. But there are still a large number of local authorities in Scotland just starting out on this. It is worrying that some of the rates are still so high."

Sheila Duffy, chief executive of the anti-smoking group Ash Scotland, said the figures showed the need for a crackdown on rogue shopkeepers.

The Smoking Bill includes proposals to fine shopkeepers who sell cigarettes to children, along with a registration scheme that would see the worst culprits being "struck off" a list of shops allowed to sell tobacco.

Ms Duffy said: "Tobacco industry-funded retailers groups tell us no change of the law is needed. But we know from government statistics eight out of ten 15-year-old smokers say they buy their cigarettes from shops."

Tobacco industry prepares to battle crackdown

THE tobacco industry is mounting a massive campaign to fight the Scottish Government's proposed crackdown on smoking.

The Tobacco Retailers Alliance, a pressure group which has 2,700 members in Scotland and is funded by cigarette manufacturers, has written to every MSP urging them to reject the SNP's plan to ban displays in shops.

The group also wants shopkeepers to bombard their MSP with complaints about the ban, which they say could drive hundreds of smaller shops out of business.

The battleground is being prepared ahead of the publication of a new Smoking Bill in March.

Shona Robison, the health minister, wants to ban the display of tobacco in shops and to get tough on retailers who flout the law. A registration scheme for shops is proposed. The Tobacco Retailers Alliance was formed 25 years ago and has 25,000 members across the UK. But it has greatly increased its lobbying activities over the past 18 months.

Last year, it launched a new arm, called Responsible Retailers, to coincide with the raising of the minimum age for cigarette sales to 18.