Tobacco: Smuggling

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

Again I thank my noble friend and my answer is the same as I gave previously.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, in tackling the illegal sale and smuggling of cigarettes and some other commodities, do the Government make any assessment of the potential reduction in their capacity to tackle these issues by the loss of staff in crucial government departments?

[Lord Sassoon]

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, is an expert on the subject because I think that he had exactly the same Question from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, about two years ago. He will know about the considerable efforts that his Government made. As I have already said, very specifically within the overall reduction that government departments are facing, HMRC has allocated £917 million to deal with revenue avoidance issues in the spending review period, of which £25 million is targeted at the area about which we are talking today. His concerns are fully recognised and have been met.