A PLAN for 'smoking kills' warnings being placed on individual cigarettes is set to be unveiled tomorrow.
Manufacturers who don't follow the rules could face huge fines or even jail under the plan.
Conservative Lord George Young will present a private members bill tomorrow which could become law.
The warnings – written in red on individual cigarettes – would include "smoking kills" and "you don't need me anymore".
Lord Young told the Mirror: "This is cost-free, popular and more effective than health warnings on packets.
"The Government could respond positively and I would be delighted if it did."
Lord Young had proposed the same measures when he was Health Minister under Margaret Thatcher – but they were knocked back by the tobacco industry who claimed the ink on the cigarettes would cause cancer.
Deborah Arnottm from Action on Smoking and Health, said: “Cigarettes kill smokers, not cigarette packs, so obviously they are where health warnings are most needed.
“All it needs is Government support for us to become the first country to put ‘smoking kills’ on the cigarette itself.”
'LAUGHABLE'
However Simon Clark from smokers' campaign group Forest said the idea to put the warnings on cigarettes was "laughable".
He said: "Smokers are well aware of the health risks."
The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Smoking and Health called on Boris Johnson to ramp up anti-smoking rules last week.
It highlighted comments from the UK's chief medical officer Chris Whitty who recently warned fags are still more deadly than the virus which brought the world to a standstill.
In 2007 the smoking ban came into force, making it illegal to smoke inside pubs, restaurants, nightclubs, work spaces, anywhere in the country.
The APPG's report comes after last week, it emerged that seven councils in England have taken that ban one step further.
Oxfordshire became the first to say they will ban smoking outside in public places.
And Northumberland county council, Durham, North Tyneside, Newcastle, and the City of Manchester all followed suit, with Gateshead adding that pavements must be smoke free.
The APPG said the government needs to "take control of tobacco" and take its place on the world stage.
Charities have called for the red warnings to be introduced before.
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), told The Sun Online in 2019: “Cigarettes are widely known as cancer sticks –why not put ‘smoking causes cancer’ on every cigarette to remind smokers every time they pull out a fag.
"The government admits it needs to more if it is to achieve its ambition of a smoke-free England by 2030.
"Warnings on cigarettes is an obvious next step, it’s already under consideration not just in Australia but also in Canada and Scotland.
"Smokers themselves say it could help them quit, and it would also be the clearest warning possible to children not to start.”
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