Publication, Part of Statistics on Smoking (replaced by Statistics on Public Health)

Statistics on Smoking, England 2020

Official statistics, National statistics

Publication Date:: 8 Dec 2020
Geographic Coverage:: United Kingdom
Geographical Granularity:: Clinical Commissioning Groups
Date Range:: 01 Apr 2019 to 31 Mar 2020

Statistics on Public Health

Please note that this publication has now been integrated into the new Statistics on Public Health publication that brings together:

Statistics on Alcohol,
Statistics on Drug Misuse,
Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet,
Statistics on Smoking.

In its first iteration it presents the information previously published in these publications in the new format agreed as part of the consultation in early 2022. The consultation outcomes document can be found below under Resources.

We value your opinions on this new look publication and would welcome your feedback.

We plan to publish updated hospital admissions, mortality and prescribing data for 2020/21 through to 2022/23 later in 2023 with the publication then being produced routinely in the autumn each year.

20 July 2023 09:30 AM

Part 3: Affordability and expenditure on tobacco

This section looks at the affordability of tobacco and expenditure on tobacco over time.

Links to data on household expenditure on tobacco, availability of tobacco and the illicit tobacco market are provided at the bottom of this page.

Please note that the charts are based on rounded data. Unrounded data are available in the corresponding data tables.

Affordability of tobacco (UK)

Long term trend

In the UK since 1987 (an arbitrarily chosen base year) prices of tobacco, as measured by the tobacco price index, have increased more than the retail price index.

Consequently the Affordability of Tobacco Index has fallen over this period; in other words tobacco has become less affordable. For more information on the Affordability of Tobacco Index see Appendix B: Technical Notes.

Last ten years (2009 to 2019)

Over the last ten years the price of tobacco, based on Tobacco Price Index, has increased by 100%.

The price of tobacco relative to retail prices (Tobacco Price Index Relative to Retail Price Index) increased by 48%, whilst real households’ disposable income increased by 8% over the same period.

As a result, tobacco has become 27% less affordable since 2009.

Download the data for this chart Affordability of tobacco

Table 3.1, Statistics on Smoking, England, 2020

Expenditure on tobacco (UK)

Expenditure on tobacco as a percent of total household expenditure

Tobacco expenditure as a proportion of total household expenditure has decreased over time. It was 1.4% in 2019, decreasing from 2.8% in 1985 (an arbitrarily chosen base year).

Download the data for this chart Expenditure on tobacco

Table 3.2, Statistics on Smoking, England, 2020

Data on the average weekly household expenditure on cigarettes is provided in the Family spending in the UK reports.

Data on the availability of tobacco is provided in UK Tobacco Duty Statistics which covers duty on cigarettes, cigars, hand rolling tobacco (HRT) and other types of tobacco such as pipe and chewing tobacco.

Data on the illicit tobacco market is provided Tobacco tax gap estimates reports which presents estimates of the tax gap for tobacco products. The tax gap is the difference between the amount of tax that should be collected against what is actually collected.

Last edited: 14 July 2023 11:13 am

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Statistics on Smoking, England 2020

Part 3: Affordability and expenditure on tobacco

Affordability of tobacco (UK)

Expenditure on tobacco (UK)

Pages in this publication