Ministers are considering forcing the tobacco industry to pay for the full cost disposing of tobacco waste products like cigarette butts, after the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said cleaning up cigarette butts costs councils £40 million a year.

Reacting to the news in The Times, IEA Head of Lifestyle Economics Christopher Snowdon said: “This tax will inevitably be passed on to smokers who already give the government £11 billion a year. Britain has some of the highest tobacco taxes in the world and they fall disproportionately on those with the lowest incomes“.

Christopher argued that the government should provide more bins if it is so concerned with littering.

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