Chancellor may cut tax on nicotine patches

Gordon Brown hinted yesterday that he may cut the VAT on nicotine patches as part of a strategy to make Britain a no-smoking nation.

At a public health seminar, the Chancellor said increasing taxes on cigarettes to discourage smoking could lead to more smuggling.

But he said nicotine replacements could be made cheaper by reducing the VAT on nicotine patches to meet Department of Health targets to reduce the number of smokers in Britain.

"We mean to explore some of the options on offer," he told the conference organised by the National Consumer Council (NCC).

"It's an individual choice, it's for people to make up their own minds, but it's clear there are certain things we can do to give people the information and incentive to do what they probably want to do themselves.

"Should nicotine patches be cheaper? Should we tax cigarettes more? How do we stop smuggling?

"How does cutting smoking feed into a wider campaign to improve public health and the health of all of us as individuals?"

Mr Brown said the health department wanted to reduce the number of adults smoking in Britain from 25 per cent to 21 per cent by 2010.

He said one in five pregnant women carried on smoking, rising to one in three among lower income families. He praised the action taken in Australia which is hoping to reduce smoking to less than 5 per cent of the population by 2020, 40 years before Britain.

Mr Brown said smoking cessation programmes could help Britain meet its no-smoking target. A survey in Sunderland by the NCC found the number of pregnant women quitting smoking increased tenfold when they were given help.

The Chancellor, who delivers his 11th and last Budget next Wednesday, said smoking cost the NHS £1.5bn per year, with 1.4 million annual NHS admissions which could be related to smoking and more than 80,000 deaths.

He cited as examples of successful public health drives the UK law forcing people to use safety belts, which had cut the number of fatal car crashes, and a campaign in Finland encouraging citizens to take more exercise which had cut the amount of heart disease.