Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much money has been (a) recovered and (b) received through fines as a result of (i) court orders and (ii) other recovery and penalty mechanisms in relation to illicit tobacco in each of the last 10 years.

The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The HMCTS Trust Statement records information relating to financial penalties imposed in the Magistrates Courts including data on the value of impositions and collections made in a financial year.

The reports used to prepare the Trust Statement do not include the offence type and hence it is not possible to identify cases relating to illicit tobacco from the available data without interrogating each individual case in the system to determine the required offence.