Illegal Alcohol and Tobacco Sales

Debate between Ian Paisley and Kelvin Hopkins

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley]

The hon. Gentleman will find that I am not arguing against his views—he is right—but we need to set out clearly how significant the problem is. Do we tax the product to the extent that it makes the smuggler’s job all the more easy, or do we recognise that there are things that the Government and we as a nation can do to address the problem?

The problem is not helped by the fact that I can drive my car to France or Belgium, fill it to the gills with cigarettes or alcohol and bring it back to this island and sell those products illegally. There should be a complete stop on a person being able to bring back a boot full of wine, alcohol and cigarettes and claim, “These are for me.” That is utter nonsense. Everyone knows that they are being brought back to be sold either on the street illegally or to their friends and neighbours. We have to make sure that such activity is stamped out.

The Government should be rigorous and ensure that, if people buy cigarettes and alcohol, they should buy them in this nation, pay tax on them in this nation and smoke and drink them in this nation, rather than allowing them to circumvent tax policies. It makes sense that I can probably buy twice as much legally in every other part of Europe than I can buy here because our tax policies are so severe. If they are severe, we need to make them work on this island.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I apologise, Ms Dorries, for my late arrival—cable theft means that the railways are in chaos.

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that, if hundreds more staff were employed by Customs to seal our borders properly and ensure that such smuggling did not take place, they would not just stop criminality, but make many times their own salary for the Treasury?

[Ian Paisley]

I would have no difficulty with the deployment of more people in the worthwhile work of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and other customs and border agencies, but our Committee took evidence from HMRC officials who said that they were satisfied with the money given to them by the Treasury and that they probably have enough people. If HMRC wants more people, it can argue its case, and it will not lack any support from me.

Some people argue that the plain or uniform packaging of cigarettes would solve the problem, but that is utter, total baloney. If people think that by simply uniformly packaging all cigarettes they will suddenly meet a public health objective, they are losing the plot. Plain or uniform packaging will not affect the problem. Every survey tells us that adults do not care if the package is gold, has a camel on it, or if it is red, white and blue. They care about price and taste. A person will smoke Camel lights because they prefer their taste to that of Marlboro. The colour of the stupid package does not matter—that goes in the bin. A person will smoke Benson and Hedges not because the box is beautifully gold with a pair of lungs on it, but because of the product’s taste and availability.

We have to wipe out the nonsense that plain packaging is the panacea to achieving a public health goal and to preventing smuggling. Plain or uniform packaging will just make it much easier for the smuggler, no matter what people say. Smugglers are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect that someone would be so daft as to uniformly package all cigarettes in the same year as we are implementing a display ban so that we cannot see the daft things. We have to recognise that, if we are to have a display ban, we do not need plain packaging. It would infringe people’s rights and on trade laws, and it would jeopardise many legitimate businesses.

I do not hear the same lobby group arguing for the plain packaging of tins of beer, or for the uniform packaging of bottles of wine or spirits. We should remember that diseases as a result of drinking alcohol cause far more damage and create far more costs for our health system than those that result from smoking cigarettes. Moreover, on antisocial behaviour, there are far more fights on the streets of this city on a Friday night, not because someone has had too many fags, but because they have had too much to drink. We have to recognise that the plain packaging argument is, frankly, nonsense. It is not a panacea to solving the problems of counterfeit crime.