THE outgoing chairman of British American Tobacco, which employs more than 1,500 workers at its Southampton cigarette factory, has hit out at "unreasonable" health regulations.

He claimed they socially exclude smokers.

Martin Broughton, who will move to British Airways when he leaves BAT this summer, said laws appeared to be cut and pasted from pressure group proposals with little basis in science.

He told the company's annual meeting that BAT genuinely sought to work with governments to achieve fair regulation that could help reduce the impact of tobacco on public health.

He added, however: "In some countries our companies are denied even the fair hearing from regulators that this constructive position merits.

"I believe that this group, which is working to define and live by corporate responsibility in more meaningful ways than other businesses have so far attempted, deserves a great deal better."

The 56-year-old will step down at the end of June after spending ten years as BAT's chief executive, including five as its executive chairman.

Mr Broughton, who famously admitted he didn't want his children to smoke, took BAT's global market share from 10.5 per cent to 14.6 per cent.

Non-executive director Jan du Plessis is to take over at the helm of the group, whose brands include Kent, Dunhill, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall.

Mr Broughton claimed some health policy makers had been "captured by narrowly-based, vociferous anti-tobacco activists" who were sometimes funded by the regulators they were lobbying. He added: "I would ask a single-interest pressure group that operates in this peculiar mode: 'Whom exactly do you represent and to whom are you accountable?'"

He also claimed that graphic picture health warnings harassed consumers but gave no more information than print warnings.

Mr Broughton told shareholders it had been a privilege to lead the firm through a "decade of change and progress".

He said that over the past ten years the group had increased its worldwide market share by 50 per cent and had more than doubled its operating profits.

BAT, which has its only UK factory in Southampton, reported a 26 per cent fall in profits in February as it faced up to higher restructuring costs and losses from the sale of operations.

Mr Broughton said that the group expected its momentum to continue, although exchange rates this year could have an adverse effect on profit growth when translated into sterling.