The cost of smoking is up to at least £21.8bn

ASH said most of this is due to the damage smoking does to the productivity of the nation. It points out data has shown this has significantly increased over time. The productivity losses are calculated using the UK Household Longitudinal Study, allowing the analysis to be controlled for age group, gender, age of the youngest child in the household, highest qualification, ethnicity, disability, housing tenure and region.

Andrea Leadsom, public health minister, said, "Smoking is the number one preventable cause of disability, ill health, and death in this country. As well as its devastating effects on our health, this important research reveals how smoking also costs our society more than £21bn each year.

"That's why we're introducing world-leading legislation to create the first smokefree generation - saving lives, easing the strain on the NHS, and helping people to save money."

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said, “Health experts gave testimony to parliament last week about the misery caused by smoking to smokers and their families and the massive burden it puts on the NHS. However, smokers lose many years of healthy life expectancy while they are still of working age, often dying long before they were due to retire. As the new figures published by ASH today demonstrate, this seriously damages the nation’s productivity, putting an even greater burden on the economy than it does on our health and care systems."