Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many (a) arrests and (b) convictions for diesel laundering there have been in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is not a prosecuting authority. Where cases do proceed to the criminal courts in Northern Ireland the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPSNI) carries out the prosecution.

HMRC’s records do not differentiate between the forms of fuel fraud it investigates and so they cannot identify arrests and convictions solely for fuel laundering. Arrests and convictions for oils offences in Northern Ireland since April 2010 were as follows:

There is no direct correlation between arrests and convictions in any one year as investigation and prosecution often straddles more than one year.

HMRC fights fraud on a wide range of fronts, from special units performing thousands of roadside checks to raiding laundering plants. The UK has recently announced, jointly with Ireland, an improved new marker for rebated fuel, which will make it much harder to launder marked fuel and sell it at a profit.