22 March 2006

New responses to new challenges: Reinforcing the Tackling Tobacco Smuggling Strategy

Further details of how the Government is reinforcing its strategy to tackle tobacco smuggling are set out in a document ‘New responses to new challenges - Reinforcing the Tackling Tobacco Smuggling Strategy’, published today. Tobacco smuggling undermines the Government’s objective to reduce smoking and denies the Exchequer revenue to fund public services. Since the launch of the Tackling Tobacco Smuggling Strategy in 2000, the illicit market share has been reduced from 21 per cent to about 16 per cent in 2003/04 , protecting £6bn in revenue. The strategy is being reinforced to clamp down further on smuggling, and to tackle the persistent smuggling of hand-rolling tobacco and the growing threat from counterfeit. New measures include:

  • reinforced agreements with tobacco manufacturers to further restrict availability of tobacco to smugglers;
  • legislation to impose obligations on tobacco manufacturers to control their supply chains, backed by penalties of up to £5m;
  • an enhanced operational response, with 200 extra staff to focus on smuggling of hand-rolling tobacco and more use of technology and intelligence, including a 30% increase in our overseas network of officers; and
  • a publicity and communications strategy to raise awareness of risks of smuggling, and undermine appeal of smuggled product to smokers.  

"New responses to new challenges: Reinforcing the Tackling Tobacco Smuggling Strategy" is available below in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer you can download the software free of charge from the Adobe website. For alternative ways to read PDF documents and further information on website accessibility visit the HM Treasury accessibility page.

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