Thousands of households in Cornwall could be lifted out of poverty if they stopped smoking, say public health officials.

Smokefree Cornwall has published its latest annual report which shows that smoking costs Cornwall £117.3million a year.

And officials said that almost a quarter of households with a smoker are living in poverty: if they quit, then thousands of households would be lifted out of poverty.

The figures were revealed in a presentation given to the Cornwall Council’s health and wellbeing board. Gareth Walsh, public health practitioner, explained that smokers in Cornwall spend around £84.7m on tobacco products every year which equates to around £2,050 per smoker.

Of that expenditure, £67.8m is taken by the exchequer in tobacco duty. However due to the cost to society, the net cost in Cornwall is £49.6m.

Mr Walsh said that the statistics, provided by ASH, also provided information about households with smokers. He said: “24% of households with a smoker fall below the poverty line in Cornwall. If those smokers quit over 3,000 households in Cornwall would be elevated out of poverty.”

The health and wellbeing board also heard that more people in Cornwall are smokers than the south west and the rest of the country – 15.2% of adults in Cornwall smoke compared to 14% across the wider south west and 13.9% in England.

Surveys have also found that almost a third of routine and manual workers in Cornwall smoke: this group is two-and-a-half times more likely to smoke than those in other jobs.

Smokefree Cornwall says that every year more than 900 deaths in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are caused by smoking and that there are currently 63,000 smokers in Cornwall.

The health and wellbeing board also heard that Cornwall has a higher than average number of young smokers than elsewhere.

Smokefree Cornwall has set a number of targets which it wants to achieve by the end of 2022:

Reduce the number of 15-year-olds regularly smoking from 8% to 3% or less

Reduce the prevalence of smoking in pregnancy from 10.7% to 6% or less

Reduce smoking prevalence in adults from 15.5% to 12% or less

Other priorities for the group include: Protecting babies and children from tobacco exposure and reducing the uptake of smoking among young people; supporting people to stop smoking; working with primary and secondary care to reduce patients’ smoking prevalence; Promoting compliance with tobacco legislation and stopping the promotion of tobacco.

Rachel Wrigglesworth, Cornwall’s director of public health, said that the costs of smoking were not just for the health and care sector but for the whole of society.

Meanwhile health and wellbeing board member Chris Blong from NHS Kernow said that he was “

shocked by the figures”

“If you can take several thousand families out of poverty by stopping smoking, that is a staggering figure.”