Minister behind the smoking ban is driven from her office - by all the smokers outside

As Minister for Public Health, Caroline Flint was the champion of regulations that outlawed smoking in workplaces and forced tobacco addicts into the open air.

But what Miss Flint could not have predicted was that the parliamentary authorities would create a designated smoking area right outside her own ground-floor ministerial office.

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The 46-year-old - who was promoted to Welfare Minister in Gordon Brown's summer reshuffle - revealed she was forced to move out because the smell of smoke was so overpowering.

Her husband and office manager Phil Cole told The Mail on Sunday: "There was some kind of ventilation system that we could not close off, so even with the windows closed the smoke kept coming in."

Miss Flint has asked for a review of the locations of the four designated smoking areas tucked away in the internal courtyards of the Palace of Westminster.

Mr Cole said: "The smokers need a place to smoke and that's fine. But for Caroline, it's been a problem. All her stuff in the office has been put in packing crates. Caroline has requested a new office."

Until she receives another room in the Commons, Miss Flint is operating from her Don Valley constituency and her offices in Whitehall.

A spokesman for the Commons authorities said: "We are aware of the situation and are trying to resolve it.

'A proposal will go to the administration committee at its next meeting."

Miss Flint, who is regularly voted Britain's most attractive politician, has confessed to smoking both tobacco and cannabis as a student.

But she has since become a fitness fanatic, keeping in shape with the Commons female tapdancing troupe, the Division Belles.

She has been the public face of Labour's smoking ban, arguing that the move would "encourage more people to give up smoking" and even "create a different culture".

When the ban came into force in England and Wales in July - following similar measures in Scotland and Northern Ireland - the Parliamentary Estate, thanks to its historic privileges, was exempt.

>But the Speaker, Michael Martin, ruled that the Commons should follow the "principles" of the new legislation.

Lighting up inside in the Palace of Westminster is now outlawed and all the smokers among the several thousand staff who work there are confined to a handful of courtyards.

The Speaker is understood to have vetoed plans to put a smoking zone below his own apartment overlooking Big Ben because he did not want visitors to be greeted by the sight of huddled smokers.