Smokers could face a huge rise in the price of cigarettes with tobacco duty reportedly set to rise

Smokers are reportedly set to face a huge hike in the price of their cigarettes next month as Jeremy Hunt prepares to raise tobacco duty - with a pack of 20 going up by £1.15, according to a national newspaper.

Hiking cigarette tax with 12.7 percent RPI, plus an extra minimum two per cent which is applied to tobacco products means a pack would jump by more than 15 per cent, which would see a 30g pack of hand rolling tobacco rise by £2.

According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in 2021, the proportion of current smokers in the UK was 13.3 per cent, which equates to 6.6 million people. This was a fall of just over one percent.

Sources reportedly told the newspaper that this may “fuel the growing black market of smoking products which is believed to have cost the Treasury £51.3billion”. Stats from Statista show that revenue from the tobacco market in the United Kingdom reached 21.8 billion GBP in 2022

A review overmaking smoking obsolete was released in 2022. The report found that “without further action, England will miss the smokefree 2030 target by at least 7 years, and the poorest areas in society will not meet it until 2044”.

In figures released in January last year, Action on smoking and health (ASH) said that the cost of smoking to society totals £17.04 billion a year, with people reportedly shelling out £2,000 a year.