Dawn of the £20 pack of cigarettes: London smokers face coughing up £1 every time they pop 'out for a snout' - as Chancellor's 10% hike on tobacco tax means it's now £100 CHEAPER to fly to Slovakia and buy 200 duty free

Smokers are paying a pound per cigarette in the country's priciest off licences - and that's before the Government's new levy comes into play.

It means that it is now nearly £100 cheaper to fly to Slovakia and back just so you can pick up a pack of 200 in Duty Free.

Jeremy Hunt's autumn budget will see the tobacco duty rocket by an additional 10 per cent - with shopkeepers warning this will bring the price of several brands above an eye-watering £20.

While the charges have applied since 6pm on November 22, shopkeepers are not expecting the cost to be passed on to customers until the end of the month. 

At Portlands, a 24 hour newsagents on the plush Kensington High Street, London, the store is already selling packs of Dunhill Red for more than £20.

The store, which is close to Kensington Palace and the Royal Albert Hall, is charging £20.19 for a pack of cigarettes.

In nearby food and wine emporium Crispins, a pack of Vogue Blue will cost smokers £19.99.

But Tebe Tabasse - who is behind the counter - says that this time next week they will be selling them for a stunning £21.49.

A pack of Marlboro Gold - which was previously £18.40 - will now rise to £19.49. 

This means each cigarette in the pack of 20 will be worth £1.07.

The 35-year-old said: 'It's going to be hard. It's too much. They don't want people to smoke but other people they will suffer.

'Because tobacco is expensive - people are not going to stop. They're just going to use another, different thing.' 

It means that you can save £100 if you fly abroad and back just so you can pick up cigarettes.

You can carry as many as 200 fags back into the UK without paying duty or tax - a number that would cost you £201.90 on Kensington High Street.

But at London Luton Airport punters can pick up a pack of 200 Marlboro Gold for £61.

This means that you could you could get a flight to Poprad, in Slovakia, and back in one day for £40 and have made a saving of £100.90.

Matthew Crawford quit smoking two years ago for medical reasons - saying: 'It nearly killed me'. He has now resorted to using a vape instead.

But the 56-year-old says new taxes will hit people who are less well off worst - because they will continue to buy them no matter the price. 

He said: 'If you buy cigarettes, like me, I did for 20-odd, 30 years, doesn't matter how much they are.

'I smoked just over a packet a day - if it was £20 it was £20. If it was £30 I'd still buy it. 

'It's not going to stop people. Price has nothing to do with it. It nearly killed me.

'People around here couldn't care less if it's £20, £30, £50 - south of the river and then maybe.'

Another pedestrian, Brian Holmes, 28, said family bring him cigarettes across from Ireland.

He said: 'I'm lucky - I have family visiting from Dublin every couple of weeks so I just get them to get them in the airport Duty Free.

'I've paid up to £23 for 20 cigarettes - I don't understand how they'd be so expensive.'  

Builder David Madden, 36, says the new price point won't stop him, even though it has gone up by £18 a pack since he started smoking. 

He said: 'It makes me want to quit but do I quit? No!

'Unless you get them from abroad it is what it is. I wouldn't get a flight to get a pack of cigarettes - that sounds like a right ball-ache.

'It's not going to stop me - it was £1.98 a pack when I started.'

But shop worker Zack Nasro slammed the rising costs as 'ridiculous' - saying he and his friends bring as many cigarettes as possible back with them when they go home to Italy and Morocco.

The 27-year-old said: 'That's crazy. Compared to every other country it's ridiculous.

'Everyone smokes in this country, considering the weather, the stress, the work, busy lives.

'But for me bringing it to that level of cost just doesn't make sense when you can get it from Italy and Spain for £3.50, £4 a packet.

'Every two months - I am from Italy so I go back to Italy or Morocco - so I just get two sleeves with me.

'I am with my partner or my friends so we just get two boxes each and I smoke them. When I finish I go back and I take again.

'Because It's just expensive here. You can't afford it. If I spent £20 every day that's going to be £600, £700 a month which is just ridiculous. I can't spend that much money.

Mahmoud Saleeh, 41, now gets his friends to bring cigarettes when they visit him from abroad - something he has only started to do since prices sky-rocketed.

He said: 'I have friends who are coming from abroad all the time so they bring me cheaper cigarettes.

'The prices are crazy - a pack of 20 in Egypt cost about 70p. Dubai is the same. Jordan is the same. Everywhere else in the world - but in the UK it's really high.

'I'm trying to switch to heated tobacco. It's cheaper - this is £5 per pack which is like 25p per cigarette.'

But the 41-year-old says he has sympathy with the Government's plan to hike prices.

He continued: 'It is ridiculous but at the same time I have children, and I want the price of the cigarette to be really high so they can't afford it to smoke when they become adults.

'20 years ago it was really cheap and anyone could afford to buy a cigarette so everyone was smoking.

'Now they are really addicted to it. I tried to quit several times but I couldn't.'