Ian Paisley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Paisley on 2016-03-10.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment the Government has made of the potential effect of future tobacco excise increases on the black market in tobacco products.

Damian Hinds

The government believes that cigarette duty achieves a balance between its two fiscal goals on tobacco; to raise revenue and to protect public health.

In considering fiscal impacts of duties, the illicit trade is an important consideration. The government is committed to tackling illicit tobacco, which undermines health and tax policy objectives and harms legitimate business. HMRC and Border Force have an established and effective strategy for tackling tobacco fraud which has seen the illicit market reduce significantly since the strategy was first launched in 2000. This has meant that, since the introduction of the tobacco duty escalator, the size of the illicit market has continued to fall.