Imperial Tobacco, one of the UK’s largest cigarette companies, has said that Labour plans for a new tobacco tax are “unjust and just a bad idea".

Ed Miliband has said that the tax on profits would raise £150 million a year for the NHS and comes at a time when tobacco companies are seeing rising profits.

Imperial, whose brands include Golden Virginia and Lambert and Butler, reported a 16.7% rise in taxes last year.

Axel Gietz, director of corporate affairs, told the BBC: "Targeting one individual industry that happens to be unpopular with an additional tax is totally unwarranted and unjust and just a bad idea.

"If you look at the taxation level of tobacco products in this country we are at 86% of the price of a pack of cigarettes in this country.”

Giles Roca, the director general of the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association, said the Labour party should instead be thinking of how to “claw back the billions in revenue the government loses through sales of illegal tobacco in the UK".