Imperial Tobacco has warned that a new levy on cigarette makers will be passed straight onto customers, should Labour win the general election tomorrow.
The party’s leader Ed Miliband has pledged to hammer tobacco companies with a windfall levy to pay for a guaranteed cancer test within seven days for every National Health Service patient.
Alison Cooper, chief executive of Imperial Tobacco, said: “We know little about it, but this looks like a quasi-increase in excise so we would have to pass it on.
“We already have concerns about the high levels of excise in the UK, this will unfortunately increase those further.”
Tobacco companies argue that high levels of taxation in the UK are forcing people to buy black-market cigarettes, smuggled in by criminal gangs.
They are also preparing a legal challenge to the coalition Government’s plans to introduce plain packaging for cigarette brands.
Imperial saw overall global cigarette volumes decline 5% in the first half of the year to the end of March, but the company’s most profitable brands — which include Davidoff and Gauloises Blondes – sold 12% more.
Underlying profits, stripping out currency movements, increased by 5% to £1.3 billion.
