UK RETAILERS HAVE COMPLAINED about having to ask customers their age when they buy Christmas crackers.

According to pyrotechnic regulations in British health and safety legislation, the seasonal crackers are now classified as ‘fireworks’ and carry an age restriction of 16 years and over.

Reuters reports that the British Retail Consortium said that customers who have “a lot on their minds will be understandably frustrated” when a cashier asks them for age identification over crackers.

Stores could be fined up to £5,000 (€5,900) and receive a six-month prison sentence for selling crackers to minors.

The PA reports that the crackers issue was raised in the House of Commons yesterday during Prime Minister’s Questions, where one MP said “absurd health and safety legislation” had reached a point where the chief executive of Sainsbury’s said Christmas crackers cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 16 without the danger of a six-month sentence.

The MP then asked David Cameron: “Will you put a firework up their health and safety legislation?”

Cameron replied: “That would give me enormous pleasure and I look forward to doing so.”