Plans to make UK's smokers stump up for permit to puff

Published on Saturday 16 February 2008 10:16

FORCING smokers to apply for a £10 permit to buy cigarettes could help people to quit, a Government 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 a annual permit and paying a 10 fee.

"70 per cent of smokers actually want to stop smoking. So if you just make it that little bit more difficult for them to actually re-start or even to start in the first place, yes I think it will make a big difference," he said.

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 which has been 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.

"Tobacco is a legal product."