Lord Palmer
Main Page: Lord Palmer (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Palmer's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years ago)
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Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the strategy has many different strands. The Government issued a comprehensive tobacco smuggling strategy in April 2011. Specifically, £25 million of HMRC’s total expenditure on tax avoidance is going in this area. It has to be said that over the past decade, the illicit market in cigarettes has come down from 21 per cent of the market in 2000 to 10 per cent in 2009-10. As I am sure the noble Lord knows, very significant progress has been made, and the Government are fully committed to continuing with that. On the other side, there is the tobacco control plan to make smoking less affordable. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is quite right regularly to press on this. It is a multi-layered strategy, and the present Government will continue to press on all aspects of this challenge.
Lord Palmer
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that if plain packaging is introduced, as is threatened, this will increase the amount of tobacco smuggled? I declare an interest as convenor of the Lords and Commons Cigar Club.
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, that is a helpful contribution to the consultation about plain packaging. These issues are all interrelated and we need to consider the second-order effects.