Kerry McCarthy – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2014-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 24 March 2014, Official Report, column 112W, on alcoholic drinks: counterfeit manufacturing, if he will carry out an assessment of the (a) scale of and (b) effect on public health of counterfeit alcohol in the UK.

Jane Ellison

I have been asked to reply.

There are slightly different issues concerning illicit, i.e. untaxed, smuggled and diverted alcohol, or counterfeit alcohol, i.e. attempting to copy existing well-known brands.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) works in partnership with all United Kingdom local authorities to tackle the production, distribution and sale of illicit alcohol. HM Revenue and Customs also works collaboratively with other UK enforcement agencies to tackle this threat. The Department of Health is concerned with any implications of these issues for alcohol policy.

The feasibility and costs of making any reliable estimates of the illicit and counterfeit alcohol markets would need to be considered. Government has no plans to make such estimates, other than the estimates published by HM Revenue and Customs for the illicit spirits market at:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/measuring-tax-gaps

We will jointly keep these issues under review.

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