Chancellor spares smokers and vapers from fresh tax hikes in Budget weeks after inflation-busting duty rise - as vape shops lose business rates relief

Smokers and vapers have been spared from a fresh set of tax hikes in the Budget weeks after they were hit with a series of inflation-busting levies.Chancellor John Healey announced he intended to withdraw business rates relief from vape shops alongside adult gaming centres in order to fund an increase in the threshold for small business rates relief (SBRR) from £12,000 to £18,000.From April, vape shops will no longer be eligible for the 5p discount on rates offered to retail, hospitality or leisure businesses, nor can they claim SBRR.Treasury figures suggest this will bring in £10million a year for the Exchequer.Introducing his so-called 'Budget for the working people of Britain', Mr Healey said income would provide 'breathing space' to other high street fixtures such as pubs; The Treasury said the move would help 'clean up and strengthen our high streets'.It comes after Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged earlier this year to make it harder for vape shops to open in 'hollowed out' town centres in a crackdown on organised criminals who use such shops as fronts for illegal activity.The announcement comes hot on the heels of a hike in tobacco taxes and the imposition of a dedicated Vaping Products Duty on October 1 - as announced in Rachel Reeves' 2024 Budget.Prices of some types of vape liquid doubled overnight as the levy - charged at £2.20 per 10ml of liquid, even on zero-nicotine formulas - took effect, with cheaper products popular with lower-income vapers hit the most.A heavy daily vape user getting through 270 10ml bottles a year could expect to pay an extra £600 a year. HMRC has given retailers a six month grace period in order to sell old stock. But cigarette smokers and other tobacco users were also hit with the same £2.20 flat hike - on top of a duty hike two percentage points above the rate of inflation.Do YOU run a vape shop? Will this affect you? Email: jon.brady@dailymail.co.uk Vape shops will no longer be eligible for business rates relief, Chancellor John Healey has announced in the Budget John Healey holding the traditional red ministerial box outside No 11 Downing Street ahead of delivering the Budget Vapers were hit with a flat duty hike of £2.20 per 10ml of vaping liquid on October 1 that lobby groups claim equates to a 264 per cent hike when VAT is appliedThen-Chancellor Rachel Reeves said at the time this was to stop traditional smoking from becoming cheaper than vaping, while the Vaping Products Duty discouraged young people from taking up vaping in the first place. But the vaping tax was slammed as a 'tax on public health' by John Dunne, director general of the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), who claimed it pushed the price of vape liquid up as much as 264 per cent after VAT was added.He said: 'If we want to talk about duty, how about the Government's duty to protect a product that has helped millions of adults cut down on or stop smoking, rather than imposing a new tax?'Protecting young people is essential. But that means stronger enforcement against illegal and rogue traders, not making legal vaping more expensive for adults trying to stay away from cigarettes.' Tobacco duty was hiked at the rate of inflation as dictated by the retail price index plus a further two percentage points on October 1 - with an additional one-off £2.20 on top per 100 cigarettes or 50g of tobacco products.Treasury figures suggest this pushed the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes up by £1.21, hiked the cost of a typical 30g packet of rolling tobacco by £2.54, and added 81p to every 10g of cigars and £1.95 to a 30g packet of pipe tobacco.Duty on heating tobacco - sold under brand names such as IQOS and Ploom - has risen by almost a quarter since October 2024, and as of October 1 saw smokers of such devices paying an additional 45p per 6g pack.Manufacturers and importers pay the duty to HMRC - though some or all of the cost may be passed on to smokers and vapers at the till.Shane Margereson, owner of online vape shop Ecigone, previously told the Daily Mail's sister title This is Money: 'For vapers it won't all land on October 1.'Shops can keep selling stock bought before October at pre-duty prices until the end of March 2027, so prices will step up gradually over the winter rather than jumping overnight, and the popular flavours will sell through first.'The industry will take the hit and adjust, because it always has.' From April 1, all vape products must carry an HMRC stamp to show they are legitimate - in a bid to combat the trade in illicit vapes. Hazel Cheeseman, of anti-smoking charity Ash, says there is still uncertainty around whether the duty will be passed on to smokers.'We need to understand not just what happens to prices, but whether the tax changes vaping and smoking among adults and young people, particularly those on the lowest incomes,' she said last month.Treasury figures suggest the duty will bring in £130million of tax revenue a year until 2030. Smokers and other tobacco users were also hit with the £2.20 levy from October 1 - on top of an inflation-busting duty hike The Government is consulting on whether to ban vape firms from using brightly coloured packaging and 'attractive' marketing Join the discussionWill removing business rates relief for vape shops end their grip on Britain's high streets?What's your view?Labour has waged near-constant war on smokers and vapers since coming to power, banning disposable vapes in June last year in what ministers said was a move to discourage young people from taking up the habit.Critics say the ban has only encouraged a black market trade in disposable vapes, while recycling group Material Focus says millions of 'reusable' vapes continue to be thrown away every month.Ministers are also consulting on whether vaping firms should be banned from using brightly coloured packaging and 'attractive' marketing.And from tomorrow retailers will be banned from selling nicotine pouches, zero-nicotine vape liquids and even vape parts such as coils to anyone under the age of 18.Previously, the products could be sold to children via a loophole in legislation as they did not contain tobacco, and were not covered by the laws governing other nicotine products. What the Budget really means for you Hi, I'm Simon Lambert, publisher of This Is Money, and now that the Budget has landed, it's important you get your finances in order. We now know exactly what the Budget included and what you need to do to protect your money. But it's not just this Budget we need to worry about, as a painful set of tax raids were already on the way. So, I've enlisted the help of leading financial experts to create a six-week plan. We explain what you need to know and how to protect your finances. > Click here and sign up to Protect Your Money now Lawmakers are also plugging a gap that allowed adults to buy vapes for under-18s - making it an offence much the same as buying cigarettes and alcohol for children.Labour is also maintaining the de facto lifetime ban on cigarettes for anyone born on or after January 1 2009 that was first mooted by the Conservatives.From New Year's Day 2027, anyone aged 18 will no longer be able to legally buy cigarettes, with the minimum age increasing by one with each passing year. Elsewhere in the Budget, the Chancellor offered 20million households a £100 handout for energy bills this winter - while hitting the banks with an additional three per cent corporation tax surcharge in order to fund a £5.5bn benefit boom.Mr Healey pledged 'breathing space' for hard-pressed families as he unveiled plans to lower fiscal headroom to £15bn by 2029-30, down from £23.6bn, and reduce borrowing over the next five years.He also confirmed a plan to abolish standing charges on gas bills that had been trailed earlier on Wednesday morning and an extension to the zero per cent VAT rate on electricity bills to July alongside the £100 energy payment.However, many of these discounts are expected to be swallowed up by a projected 27 per cent increase in the energy cap in the New Year.The fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, has forecast a slowdown in growth for the British economy, predicting expansion of 1.2 per cent this year but only 1 per cent the next.Other announcements in Mr Healey's 'steady as she goes' Budget, including tariff reductions on imported products such as marmalade and gherkins, were derided as an 'insult to families' that would see just 40p slashed from the average weekly shop.Addressing the Commons immediately after Mr Healey, Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch told the Chancellor his Budget was 'not good enough, not strong enough, not bold enough'.She said: 'Is that it? Really? 'The prime minister came in promising to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism. Instead, we got 4p off gherkins.'This Budget does not come close to meeting the moment.'The Burnham Budget is here... but what does it mean for YOU? Click here to sign up to Simon Lambert's subscriber-exclusive newsletter series and learn exactly how to Protect Your Money.