Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were convicted of tobacco-related fraud in (a) Medway, (b) Kent and (c) England in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Mike Penning
There are a range of offences dealing with the importation of restricted goods, counterfeiting, fraud and the sale of illicit goods and it is therefore not possible to identify those convictions specifically relating to tobacco. There are high penalties available for these serious offences, for example revenue fraud offences carry a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment. Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts.
This Government is committed to stepping up action to deal with this problem. In 2011, HMRC and Border Force published a comprehensive strategy, Tackling Tobacco Smuggling – building on our success, for tackling tobacco smuggling to address the source, supply and demand for illicit tobacco products in the UK. Information on the outputs of the tobacco strategy, case studies, criminal investigations, civil penalties and high profile multi-agency events, can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-tobacco-smuggling-2013-to-2014-outputs .
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people received a custodial sentence for selling illicit tobacco in (a) Medway, (b) Kent and (c) England in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Mike Penning
There are a range of offences dealing with the importation of restricted goods, counterfeiting, fraud and the sale of illicit goods and it is therefore not possible to identify those convictions specifically relating to tobacco. There are high penalties available for these serious offences, for example revenue fraud offences carry a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment. Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts.
This Government is committed to stepping up action to deal with this problem. In 2011, HMRC and Border Force published a comprehensive strategy, Tackling Tobacco Smuggling – building on our success, for tackling tobacco smuggling to address the source, supply and demand for illicit tobacco products in the UK. Information on the outputs of the tobacco strategy, case studies, criminal investigations, civil penalties and high profile multi-agency events, can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-tobacco-smuggling-2013-to-2014-outputs .
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of repeat offenders for selling illicit tobacco.
Answered by Mike Penning
There are a range of offences dealing with the importation of restricted goods, counterfeiting, fraud and the sale of illicit goods and it is therefore not possible to identify those convictions specifically relating to tobacco. There are high penalties available for these serious offences, for example revenue fraud offences carry a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment. Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts.
This Government is committed to stepping up action to deal with this problem. In 2011, HMRC and Border Force published a comprehensive strategy, Tackling Tobacco Smuggling – building on our success, for tackling tobacco smuggling to address the source, supply and demand for illicit tobacco products in the UK. Information on the outputs of the tobacco strategy, case studies, criminal investigations, civil penalties and high profile multi-agency events, can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tackling-tobacco-smuggling-2013-to-2014-outputs .
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of courtrooms do not have induction loops installed.
Answered by Shailesh Vara
HM Courts and Tribunals Service operates a reasonable adjustments policy to provide access to information and services for customers with disabilities.
Information on the number of court rooms with induction and infra-red hearing enhancement systems is currently being collected as part of the 2014 court room survey. I will write to my hon. Friend, as soon as the information is available.
Asked by: Rehman Chishti (Conservative - Gillingham and Rainham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, on how many occasions the disciplinary punishment of additional days was imposed on prisoners in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Jeremy Wright
The punishment of additional days arises from adjudication outcomes. Data on adjudications count the number of offences punished and the number of punishments given, rather than the number of prisoners charged with those offences.
The table below gives details of the total number of offences punished, the total number of punishments given, and the number of punishments for which additional days were given, each year from 2004 to 2013 (latest available).
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
| Number of offences punished, number of punishments, and number of additional days given as punishment to prisoners, | |||||||||||||||
| annually 2004 - 2013, England and Wales1,2,3 | |||||||||||||||
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | ||||||
| Number of offences punished | 108,389 | 110,651 | 105,958 | 109117 | 111,833 | 104,745 | 90,966 | 92,328 | 86,500 | 85,532 | |||||
| Number of punishments: | 185,494 | 189,404 | 178,807 | 184,486 | 190,192 | 182,053 | 173,707 | 170,945 | 158,869 | 156,892 | |||||
| of which additional days given | 9,454 | 12,040 | 12,566 | 13,460 | 12,792 | 11,550 | 9,006 | 8,488 | 8,395 | 9,046 | |||||
| 1 - This relates to all proven adjudications and includes suspended and prospective punishments | |||||||||||||||
| 2 - In May 2009, the National Offender Management Service began the roll-out of a new case management system for prisons (Prison-NOMIS). | |||||||||||||||
| During the phased roll-out, data collection issues emerged that affected the supply of data for statistical purposes from July 2009 to February 2010. | |||||||||||||||
| Therefore 2009 figures have been estimated using data from January to June 2009: | |||||||||||||||
| See statistical notice published on 22 July 2010 at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/218063/omcs-stats-notice.pdf | |||||||||||||||
| 3 - The number of offences punished and punishments given are not equal because in many cases two or more punishments are given for a single offence. | |||||||||||||||
| Data Sources and Quality These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. | |||||||||||||||