Cigarettes will have to be kept out of sight when tobacco displays are banned from shops, the Government said yesterday.
Doctors and health campaigners said that they were delighted with the decision, but retailers attacked the plan, saying that it would harm small shops without reducing smoking among young people.
Ministers are also “keeping an open mind” on plans for cigarettes to be sold in plain packets as they attempt to force down smoking rates, which have remained static in recent years.
Cigarettes, rolling papers and other tobacco products will have to be kept under the counter or behind covers within 13 months in larger stores. Corner shops will have until 2015 to comply.
Meanwhile, Kate Moss marked No Smoking Day yesterday by lighting up on the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week, prompting disapproval from health campaigners, who argue that she is encouraging girls to take up smoking.
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“It does have an impact,” said a spokeswoman for ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). “When David Beckham used to change his hairstyle, every ten-year-old boy in the country used to copy him — role models are important to the young.”
Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said: “We want to do everything we can to help people to choose to stop smoking and encourage young people not to start smoking in the first place.”
Smoking rates in England have been stuck at about 21 per cent for four years. Mr Lansley aims to reduce that to 18.5 per cent by 2015, while cutting rates among 15-year-olds from 15 per cent to 12 per cent.
Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer, said that she “strongly supported” the display ban.
But Andrew Opie, of the British Retail Consortium, said there was “no evidence that forcing shops to put cigarettes out of sight will make any difference. It puts new costs on retailers, who are being forced to refit their stores, and will inconvenience customers.”
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Smoking-related illnesses cost the NHS about £2.7 billion a year, and the Government estimates that the overall burden of tobacco to society is £13.74 billion a year. Tobacco taxes raise about £11 billion a year.