Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have been prosecuted for fuel laundering in Northern Ireland in the last 12 months.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is not a prosecuting authority. Where cases do proceed to the criminal courts in Northern Ireland the prosecution is carried out by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPSNI).

HMRC’s records do not differentiate between the forms of fuel fraud it investigates and so they cannot identify prosecutions solely for fuel laundering. Prosecutions instigated for oils offences in Northern Ireland since April 2013 were as follows:

2013-14: 6

2014-15 (to December) 6

HMRC fights fraud on a wide range of fronts, from special units performing thousands of roadside checks to raiding laundering plants. The UK has recently announced, jointly with Ireland, an improved new marker for rebated fuel, which will make it much harder to launder marked fuel and sell it at a profit.