LAWS to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes and tobacco to 18 will start next month after MSPs voted unanimously in favour of the measure.

However, Public Health Minister Shona Robison told Parliament measures like the smoking ban could not be viewed as "job done".

She said: "We need to start with our young people and discourage them from starting to smoke in the first place.

"Raising the age will make it more difficult for young people to buy cigarettes and bring it in line with alcohol sales.

"It will be easier to enforce and help young people resist peer pressure."

John Drummond, chief executive of the Scottish Grocers Federation, welcomed the measure, but said not enough had been done to protect shop workers.

"Already retailers and shop workers face intimidation, violence and abuse when challenging some youngsters to prove their age," he said.

"Now, with 16 and 17-year-olds set to lose their ability to smoke overnight, it is shop workers not the police or politicians, who will be expected to enforce the law.

"Unlike in England, where the Government have been working to get the message out there, all we have heard is a deafening silence."