Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have been prosecuted in relation to the manufacture, distribution and sale of illegal tobacco products by (a) HM Revenue & Customs, (b) Border Force and (c) Trading Standards in each financial year since 2018-19.

The Government does not maintain a central record of the total number of people prosecuted for manufacturing, distributing or selling illicit tobacco products, or a breakdown of prosecutions by agency.

HMRC does publish annual data on the number of arrests, positive charging decisions¹ and convictions² as a result of its criminal investigations relating to tobacco. This can be found in its Outputs for tackling tobacco smuggling report. The figures since 2018-19 are below. Figures for 2021-22 are not yet available.

¹During the life of a prosecution case a decision is made as to whether to charge a suspect or not.

²Convictions do not necessarily relate to prosecutions started in this period, since outcomes to case will depend on the time taken for them to be processed through the judicial system.