ELECTRONIC cigarettes are not encouraging young people to take up smoking, research by a health charity has shown.

Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) found no evidence that young people are being recruited to smoking through using e-cigarettes, despite a rise in the number of 11 to 18-year-olds who claim to have tried the vaporiser.

In 2013, four per cent of 11 to 18-year-olds said they had tried e-cigarettes ‘once or twice’ but in 2015, the figure had risen to 10 per cent.

However, regular use remained rare, with 2.4 per cent of young people claiming to use the devices at least once a month.

East Lancashire is home tothe biggest e-cigarette firms in the country – Totally Wicked, Liberty Flights, and The Electronic Cigarette Company.

According to government figures, regular smoking among 11 to 15-year-olds is also at an all-time low of three per cent.

Ash claims this indicates that the increase in awareness and use of e-cigarettes has not coincided with a rise in teenage smokers.

The authors noted that there was a rise in the number of young people who thought e-cigarettes were as harmful as smoking tobacco.

Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at Ash, said: “These results should reassure the public that electronic cigarettes are not linked with any rise in young people smoking.

“Although more young people are trying electronic cigarettes and many more young people are aware of them, this has not led to widespread regular use or an increase in smoking.”

Professor Kevin Fenton, national director for health and wellbeing at Public Health England, said: “This survey provides further confirmation regular use of electronic cigarettes is low and largely confined to young people who are already smokers.

“The new law prohibiting the sale of electronic cigarettes to young people under the age of 18 – which is due to take effect on October 1 – will further reduce teenagers’ access to these products and will reinforce the message that they are intended for adult smokers who want to cut down or stop smoking.”