§ 4. Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster, Central)If he will make a statement on measures being taken to prevent criminals profiting from unlawful activities in Northern Ireland. [141754]
§ The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Ingram)Crime for profit is unacceptable in any normal society, but the nature of organised crime in the Northern Ireland context is particularly odious. We must not allow racketeering to affect the development of a normal civic society in Northern Ireland, and nor will we. For that reason, the Secretary of State announced on 25 September the establishment of an organised crime taskforce under my chairmanship, to co-ordinate at a strategic level the fight against organised crime. That taskforce has now met and a range of initiatives are being considered.
§ Ms WintertonI thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is it not the case that many criminals in Northern Ireland are profiting from tobacco smuggling, a high-return, low-risk activity? What measures is he taking to combat that crime and to stop criminals profiting from it?
§ Mr. IngramThat problem is tackled on a multi-agency basis. Customs and Excise, which, in the main, leads initiatives against such criminality, has produced some marked successes this year. We are only three quarters of the way through the financial year and 45 million illegal cigarettes have been confiscated. That is a 100 per cent. increase on last year, when 22 million were confiscated. We can tackle that illegal activity if agencies work as they have been doing and we make them more effective, but we need the support of the community. The more information the RUC and Customs and Excise have, the more successful they will be.
§ Mr. William Ross (East Londonderry)The fact that the agencies have managed to seize 45 million cigarettes serves to highlight the scale of the problem, but is it not a fact that the smuggling of road fuel far exceeds that activity? What undertaking has the Minister received from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that effective steps will be taken to end that fuel smuggling?
§ Mr. IngramThe hon. Gentleman alights on the important issue of the smuggling of illicit fuel. Customs and Excise is able to show marked successes in dealing with that. However, the important thing is not just preventing the movement of fuel but closing down the laundering plants that produce substantial quantities of illicit fuel. This year alone, 13 fuel plants have been closed, and we calculate that that has prevented some 40 million litres of illicit fuel from entering the Northern Ireland economy, so we can claim some success, but we will not stop there.
What I said earlier about the multi-agency approach stands for all Departments, and the Treasury and the Chancellor have been helpful in implementing our initiatives.
§ Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down)Is the Minister aware that almost one third of all motor fuel consumed in Northern Ireland is believed to be smuggled, and that while the number of registered vehicles has increased by 125,000 since 1995, the amount of legally imported fuel has dropped by nearly 50 per cent.?
§ Mr. IngramWithout necessarily confirming those figures, I can tell the House that one of the functions of 351 the taskforce will be to analyse the extent of the problem. We already know some of the bases from which we are working, but my guess is that there are also many hidden aspects. We want to establish the facts before we introduce measures to tackle the problem because we want to be totally successful.