Ministers are reportedly planning to ban vaping in playgrounds, hospital grounds and near schools in an attempt to prevent children from taking up the habit.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is considering restricting the use of e-cigarettes outdoors in England with Chris Whitty, the country’s chief medical officer for England, said to favour the move.

Vaping restrictions will be included in the tobacco and vapes bill due to be presented to parliament in the coming weeks. Whitty is understood to have argued for including pub gardens in the ban but no final decision has been made, the Times reported.

Ministers are not expected to include outdoor hospitality after the backlash in August over proposals to ban smoking in pub gardens to reduce the number of preventable deaths linked to tobacco use.

A study published earlier this week found that 1 million people in England now vape despite having never been regular smokers previously, a seven-fold increase in just three years.

Rates of e-cigarette use among adults who had never regularly had cigarettes were stable until 2021, when one in 200 – about 133,000 people – were vapers. However, the proportion increased sharply to one in 28 in 2024 – 1,006,000 people – according to the study published in the Lancet Public Health journal.

Separate figures from the Office for National Statistics showed 5.1 million people aged 16 or over in Britain – about one in 10 – use e-cigarettes. Vaping rates were highest among those aged 16 to 24, at 15.8%, the ONS found.

Prof Nick Hopkinson, a respiratory physician and chair of Action on Smoking and Health, said: “Vaping has helped millions of adults quit smoking and is much less harmful than smoking. However, it is not risk-free and high levels of use among young people and growing use among never-smokers is a concern.”

Prof Sanjay Agrawal, the Royal College of Physicians’ special adviser on tobacco, said “urgent action” was required to tackle the rise in vaping among young people and those who had never smoked.

He said: “While e-cigarettes remain a valuable tool for helping smokers quit, it is essential that their use doesn’t create new public health risks, particularly among children.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaks. Whilst vapes can be an effective tool to help adult smokers quit, children should never vape.

“The tobacco and vapes bill will bring about definitive and positive change to stop future generations from becoming hooked on nicotine and stop vapes and other nicotine products from being deliberately branded to target children.”