Call for tobacco duty to reflect cost of smoking to society

One of the nation's leading think tanks has called upon the next government to introduce a 5% rise in duty tax on sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The Policy Exchange's Cough Up report states that currently, the Treasury receives £10 billion per year from tobacco taxes. However, this is lower than the actual cost to society caused by tobacco sales - estimated by the Exchange to be about £13.74 billion.

The report describes smoking as the "single, largest preventable cause of serious ill health and kills tens of thousands of people in England every year."

They claim that "it is a popular myth that smoking is a net contributor to the economy" and that "every single cigarette costs the country 6.5p". According to their report, cigarettes alone cost the UK £12.82 billion.

Cancer Research UK has added its support to The Policy Exchange's proposals to discourage smoking and to increase the cost of cigarettes by an average of 23p per pack. Robin Hewings, manager of tobacco policy at the charity said: "Price increases are the single most effective way of reducing smoking and this report makes a strong case for raising the price of tobacco by five per cent in the coming budget."

Recommendations which can help reduce the burden placed upon the NHS as well as drive new revenues from taxation could gain favour with any incoming government, faced with the unpopular task of cutting public spending but the challenge of retaining public services. Whilst new taxes are generally unfavourable, the public has already shown that it is largely unconcerned with measures that negatively affect smokers - the smoking ban of 2007 for example has caused little controversy since it came into effect.

In the near future, the costly habit of smoking could become even more so. Current addicts could make better use of their money by taking up stop smoking hypnotherapy sessions, ridding themselves of a dependency that costs them - and society - valuable money.

The think tank says that the cost can be found in areas such as the expense of NHS treatments for smokers, the cost of smoking-related fires, the loss in output caused by the death of smokers and passive smokers, as well as the absenteeism caused by smoking breaks and the cost of cleaning up cigarette butts.