HMRC has admitted that it doesn’t routinely collect data on how many retailers are selling illegal tobacco. Would probably be easier to start recording the shops rather than sifting through sewage to guess how big the black market is…..
In response to a written parliamentary question asking whether HMRC holds data on investigations involving illicit tobacco with suspected links to drug or human trafficking, fraud and money laundering, Paymaster General James Murray said: “HMRC does not routinely collect or publish data on the number of retail premises suspected of selling illicit tobacco products. Although HMRC records information on illicit tobacco investigations, those investigations are not routinely categorised by linked criminality type”…
Less than two weeks ago, Labour imposed an additional £2.20 tobacco duty increase, despite HMRC’s own impact assessment warning that “some consumers might also engage in cross-border shopping and purchase from the illicit tobacco market” as a result. The Budget is looming…
Yesterday a man was arrested after Greater Manchester Police seized £400,000 worth of illegal cigarettes, while a Bristol shop selling illicit tobacco has finally been ordered to close for three months following repeated seizures and warnings. Meanwhile, Andy Burnham is still busy promising to clean up the high street. More focused on Man City than improving lives in Manchester…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.