He may be Bradford’s most famous living son – but David Hockney’s comments about smoking are unhelpful in the extreme and verge on the irresponsible.

In a newspaper article, the artist hit out at a suggestion by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley that cigarettes should be sold in plain packaging, claiming the dangers of smoking were greatly exaggerated.

But thousands of children still take up smoking every day according to campaigners, and anything that can be done to reduce this figure should be welcomed not criticised.

Despite what Mr Hockney claims, smoking is a killer and it leads to a vast drain on limited NHS resources. Smoking as a child represents the start of an invariably lethal addiction which is very difficult to stop. Recent figures showed that one in seven youngsters start smoking before they are 15; two-thirds of regular smokers start before they are 18.

Plain packaging is not likely in itself to put an end to this filthy habit afflicting our children at too early an age. It would be naive to believe that simply getting rid of the brightly coloured packages and logos would suddenly stop teenagers from ever buying cigarettes.

But as part of concerted efforts to tackle this problem, it will have an impact. We have already seen severe restrictions on the displays of cigarettes, and tougher regulation on packaging must now be seriously looked at. The more that can be done to stop cigarettes looking like cool fashionable accessories the better. If the next step of that is to take all the glitz out of the packaging then so be it.

Anything that can protect our young people from this killer addiction – and in spite of what Mr Hockney says, that is exactly what smoking is – should be welcomed.