Cigarette Price Rise: How Many Fags And Rolling Tobacco Will Go Up From 6 p.m. Today REVEALED

As part of Hammond’s tobacco tax hike, a pack of premium cigarettes will cost smokers £ 10.80 – a tantalizing 28 pence increase.

An average pack of 20 queers, like Benson & Hedges, Lambert & Butler, will go up to £ 9.30.

In his fall budget, Hammond unveiled his plan to raise tobacco taxes at the rate of inflation – 3% – plus an additional 2%, punishing millions of smokers.

Hand-roll tobacco pouches, such as Amber Leaf, will also be increased by an additional 1% – sending the cost of a 50g pouch above £ 20.

An estimated 17.2% of all adults – around 10 million people – were smokers in 2015, according to the latest figures from the ONS.

The shock duty hike – the second in 2017 – will go into effect from 6 p.m. tonight.

The “sin tax” was introduced by the Chancellor to discourage people from smoking and to improve public health.

Speaking to Daily Star Online, tobacco industry activists called on Hammond to freeze taxes on cigarettes to prevent smokers from being “out of pocket.”

Smokers have already been hit by a triple price hike in 2017, which saw the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes rise by 35p.

Two of these “sin taxes” were introduced by Chancellor Hammond in his spring budget in March 2017.

Hammond unveiled a “minimum floor” of excise duties of £ 7.35 on a bundle of queers as well as an increase in tobacco duties to 2% above inflation.

Smokers then received a third major blow on May 20, 2017, when the EU introduced a regulation banning the sale of 10 packets, small packets of mint tobacco roll-on cigarettes, among other tobacco products.

The average cost of a premium pack of 20 cigarettes was £ 9.91 in the UK in March 2017, according to the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association (TMA).

Now smokers have come under fire with the fourth tobacco price hike of 2017 in Hammond’s fall budget.

Tobacco activists have reacted with fury to the news of another tariff increase.

Simon Clark, director of the tobacco lobby group Forest, said the tax hike would hit poorer smokers who are “less well off.”

He said: “This is the second increase this year. Tobacco taxes are already punishingly high.

“Once again, the poor are being sacrificed on the altar of public health.

“The Prime Minister said his government wanted to help those who only manage.

“Instead of helping, the Chancellor will push more people into poverty unless they quit smoking or turn to the black market.

“Thanks to the Chancellor, more and more smokers will buy illicit tobacco at home or buy their tobacco abroad.

“The loss of revenue for the treasury will far outweigh the health benefits of the nation.”