Junior health minister Martin van Rijn plans to ensure smoking is banned in all school playgrounds throughout the Netherlands, he told parliament in a briefing on Friday.

Smoking is currently banned in about half of schools and that needs to be made 100%, the minister said.

‘If you manage not to smoke as a teenaager, you are less likely to begin as an adult,’ Van Rijn said. ‘Schools have an important job to do in this. Many people smoked their first cigarette at school.’

Van Rijn has commissioned public health experts to carry out more research on the smoking patterns among 16 to 18-year-olds. The sale of tobacco to the under-18s has been banned since the beginning of 2014.