Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of cigarettes on which tax has not been paid in (a) Gillingham and Rainham constituency, (b) Kent and (c) England in the latest period for which figures are available.

Estimates of the volume losses associated with the illicit market for cigarettes for the period 2008-09 to 2012-13 are published in ‘Tobacco Tax Gap estimates: 2012-13’. The figures are available in table 1.1.

These estimates cannot be disaggregated by the type of illicit activity, e.g. through smuggling, counterfeiting or other fraud, or by any geographical level lower than the UK.

The methodology for producing the estimates are provided in the ‘Methodological Annex for Measuring Tax Gaps 2013’.

The ‘Tobacco Tax Gap estimates” can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/249543/131009_Publication_of_Tobacco_Tax_Gap_estimates_2012-13.pdf