Ministers in the Scottish Executive indicated last night that they will accept a backbench amendment to raise from 16 to 18 the minimum legal age for buying tobacco products.

Smokers reacted with fury, saying that such a change would mean that young people aged 16 and 17 would be legally entitled to have sexual intercourse but face jail if they had a cigarette afterwards. Even anti-smoking campaigners said that it would be better to enforce more rigorously the present age limit of 16.

But politicians in Scotland, which has long endured a terrible record on public health, having a reputation for heavy drinking and smoking and the consumption of fatty food, are serious about forcing through radical — and controversial — changes.

Anti-smoking legislation for Scotland, which is nearing the end of its passage through the Scottish Parliament, already goes further than that proposed for England by banning smoking in all public places including pubs, clubs and restaurants. The ban is due to take effect from next spring.

The latest twist comes as the Scottish Executive indicated strongly that ministers would accept an amendment tabled by a Labour MSP to make Scotland the first part of mainland Britain to raise the age for buying tobacco products from 16 to 18.

The new age limit will be debated by the Scottish Parliament’s health committee today. It appears certain that it will win support.

The amendment put forward by Duncan McNeil, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, means that Scotland will follow the example of other Western countries such as Canada, the United States and Finland, which have already raised the age limit for buying tobacco products to 18.

The only part of the British Isles to have a similar ban on 16 and 17-year-olds buying cigarettes is Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, which has seen a 50 per cent reduction in the number of smokers.

Mr McNeil, explaining the thinking behind his amendment, said that while most smokers would like to stop, there was an even greater percentage who wish that they had not started in the first place. “If we make it more difficult for people to purchase cigarettes and to start and sustain a smoking habit, then I believe we would get support for that right across the board,” he said.

Shopkeepers will be expected to ask for proof of identity from any young man or woman buying cigarettes, with tough penalties for retailers caught flouting the law.

Neil Rafferty, of Forest, the smokers’ rights group, said: “Are we saying that 16-year-olds can have sex but can’t have a cigarette afterwards?” But the only significant political opposition to the move is likely to come from the Scottish Conservatives, who say that the new age limit may be unworkable.

Bill Aitken, a Conservative MSP, said: “The fact that you can get married at 16 but not buy a packet of fags does seem a bit odd.” He pointed out that there were only two prosecutions for selling tobacco to under-16s in Scotland throughout the 1990s but more than 130 in England and Wales.

“I’m not convinced increasing this age limit, desirable as it may be in certain respects, is likely to be effective on a level that’s going to have any deterrent effect whatsoever,” Mr Aitken said.

Surprisingly Mr McNeil’s move was criticised by Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), the anti-smoking group. A spokeswoman for Ash said there was no evidence that raising the age limit for buying cigarettes would reduce numbers who smoked. It would be better, she said, if more effort were put into enforcing the present limit.

The Scottish Executive said in a statement last night that ministers were happy to consider any amendment that would open up further ways of discouraging young people from taking up the smoking habit.

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