GREEN and anti-smoking campaigners have accused Southampton's cigarette group British American Tobacco of using charitable donations and self-regulation to win political support.

Friends of the Earth claimed BAT had tried to use corporate-giving programmes and codes of conduct to pre-empt higher taxes, tobacco advertising bans and public smoking limits.

The group, whose members protested at BAT's annual meeting in London yesterday, said the firm was "hiding the damage it causes to health, development and the environment behind a mask of corporate social responsibility (CSR)".

BAT, which makes brands including Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall, said the CSR programmes it had introduced had promoted training, conservation and fair trade. They included a scheme to help tobacco farmers in 22 countries to manage crops and adopt safer working practices and a biodiversity partnership withfour major non-governmental organisations, it said.

BAT is one of Southampton's biggest employers, with 1,500 staff, and the cigarette-making factory here is the company's last remaining one in the UK.

Chairman Jan du Plessis told the meeting that getting CSR right was not easy, especially for companies like BAT "in controversial sectors".

"However, criticisms will not deter us from working to balance our responsibilities to all our stakeholders, including our shareholders," he said.

Friends of the Earth, Christian Aid and Action on Smoking & Health (Ash) yesterday published a report which they said used internal company documents to show BAT was using CSR to try to block anti-smoking initiatives.

A BAT spokesman said the three lobby groups had refused the company's invitations to meet it to discuss their concerns.

She declined to comment on the specific cases raised in documents cited in the report, but added: "We doubt whether some of the individual references in the report to corporate social investment and corporate social responsibility were well informed."

BAT recently made annual pre-tax profits of £1.9 billion.