Four out of five Britons want the legal smoking age to be raised from 16 to 18 years, according to a poll on yesterday.

Eighty percent of respondents believed raising the age at which teenagers could buy cigarettes would discourage them from taking up the habit, said the ICM poll commissioned by the BBC.

Of those questioned, 93 percent supported increasing and enforcing the penalties for selling tobacco to children, and two-thirds said parents who consistently allow their under-age children to smoke should face prosecution. Just over half thought smoking should be made more expensive and three-quarters said more should be spent on anti-smoking campaigns.

Public Health Minister Melanie Johnson welcomed the findings. “What it suggests overall is that people are concerned about major public health issues and they have recognised that this is one of the most significant of those issues,” she told BBC radio.

But she said the government has not been considering raising the age of smoking to 18. The government is preparing to publish new rules on smoking in the workplace, including pubs and clubs, which are due to be revealed this autumn.

Two-thirds of those questioned in the ICM/BBC poll supported a workplace ban. ICM conducted the nationwide phone poll of 1,010 adults in England, Wales and Scotland between August 20 and 22.