Call for smokers to pay £10 for permit

Published on Saturday 16 February 2008 22:58

FORCING smokers to apply for a £10 permit to buy cigarettes could help people to quit, a Westminster health adviser has said.

Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, said more people might stop smoking if they had to "opt in" by applying for an annual permit and paying a 10 fee.

"Seventy per cent of smokers actually want to stop smoking. So if you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually restart, or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

He said that some people would be deterred from smoking if they had to make the effort to fill in a complicated form, get a photograph taken and pay a charge.

"It's a little bit of a problem to actually do it, so you have got to make a conscious decision every year to opt in to being a smoker," he added.

The proposal is one of Health England's suggestions for preventing illness sent to health minister Lord Darzi.

Simon Clark, of smokers' rights group Forest, said the smoking permit proposal was outrageous.

"We are becoming not just a nanny state but a bully state," he said.

"Smokers already face record levels of taxation and this would be another financial hit on them. Tobacco is a perfectly legal product.

"There are a whole host of things out there that are potentially dangerous. If smokers are targeted in this way, it's a very short step to slapping a similar charge on anyone who wants to buy alcohol or any other product ministers don't approve of."

A Department of Health spokeswoman told reporters there will be a consultation later this year on the next steps for tobacco control.

Health England is currently developing a 10-year plan which is due to be published in March 2009.