Smokers face biggest price hike ever next month with packs of fags set to rocket by £1.15

SMOKERS face the biggest ever price hike in fags next month as Jeremy Hunt prepares to raise tobacco duty – with a pack of 20 going up by £1.15. 

Industry insiders are bracing for taxes on cigarettes to increase with inflation at the March 15 Budget in a blow to puff-partial Brits.

PA

Smokers face the biggest ever price hike in fags[/caption]

Hiking fag levies with 12.7 per cent RPI – plus an extra minimum 2 per cent bump applied to tobacco products – means a pack would jump by more than 15 per cent. 

It would see a 30g pack of hand rolling tobacco rise by £2 thanks to higher rates.

Even the Action on Smoking and Health group urged the Chancellor to increase the duty by 5.4 per cent in line with earnings rather than sky-high inflation. 

Sources fear this would fuel the growing black market of smoking products which is believed to have cost the Treasury £51.3billion.

Fag duty is 16.5 per cent of the retail price plus an extra £5.26 on a packet of 20.

It usually increases with inflation each year unless the Chancellor intervenes to freeze the rates.

Taxing tobacco is a huge revenue-raiser for the Government, last year clawing in £10.7billion – 1.2 per cent of the total tax take. 

Ministers are currently aiming to make Britain “smoke free” by 2030, meaning fewer than 5 per cent of adults have the habit.

A Government-commissioned review recommended nannying policies including upping the smoking age by one year every year. 

Benjamin Elks, operation manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Smokers already pay vast sums to the Treasury.

“Tobacco taxes are high enough, without yet another damaging increase. The government should freeze tobacco duty.”