The ban on smoking in public places has had effect on cutting numbers of smokers, according to a National No Smoking Day survey.
Twenty-three per cent of all smokers have cut down since the smoke-free laws came in and 20% say they want to quit for good.
The YouGov survey suggests that 2.25 million people (19% of smokers) are not taking one puff today, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the health promotion day.
2,126 adults were questioned in the online survey from 21-25 February.
This suggests that in the South East 30% have cut down since the laws came in and 29% in London. In Scotland and the South West 27% have cut down, the North West 20%, the North 18% and the West Midlands just 10%.
The Chancellor’s 11p per pack duty on cigarettes will cost smokers with a 20-a-day habit £2,077 a year, says the No Smoking Day charity – which it hopes will incentivise more of today’s quitters to maintain their commitment to give up.
The charity's chief executive Dan Tickle said: "A 20-a-day smoker will now be spending well over £2,000 a year, up from under £500 when we launched our first No Smoking Day, 25 years ago.
"But the good news is that the UK now leads the world in services for people who want to quit smoking. You’re four times more likely to succeed if you use the free local stop smoking services."
One hospital trying to reduce smoking in young people is the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Its randomised controlled trial, called txt2stop, uses mobile phones as a way to offer text message support to those attempting to quit.
The Medical Research Council-funded trial follows a similar initiative in New Zealand, where quit rates doubled in six weeks.
Carrie Free, clinical lecturer in Epidemiology and trial coordinator, said: "The results of our pilot trial were very promising. This trial will tell us if the txt2stop programme can help smokers quit and stay quit in the long term."
5,800 people, aged 16 and over, will be recruited over two years.