Number of children who have smoked falls to new low

The number of children who have smoked has fallen to a record low, an NHS survey revealed today.

Sixteen per cent of secondary school pupils said they had tried cigarettes last year, down from 19 per cent two years earlier.

This is the lowest level ever recorded by the two-yearly survey and continues the decline from 49 per cent in 1996.

The percentage of pupils who had ever smoked was similar for boys (16 per cent) and girls (17 per cent). It increased with age, from two per cent of 11-year-olds to 31 per cent of 15-year-olds.

Five per cent of 15-year-olds were regular smokers. Rates were lowest in London (three per cent) and highest in Yorkshire and the Humber, at more than seven per cent.

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The research, published by NHS Digital, was based on an Ipsos Mori survey of 13,664 year 7 to 11 pupils in 193 schools across England.

It also found that 38 per cent of 15-year-olds drank alcohol at least once a month, and 22 per cent were drunk in the last four weeks.

A quarter of pupils said they had used e-cigarettes, the same as in 2016. Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “This provides reassurance that vaping has not become the ‘super-cool’ phenomenon among young people in England that it is said to be in the USA.”

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