§ Mrs. BrookeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much the budgets of the(a) police, (b) Customs and (c) intelligence services were to combat (i) drug, (ii) firearm and (iii) people trafficking in (A) 2001, (B) 2002 and (C) 2003. [96907]
§ Mr. Bob AinsworthThe information is as follows:
- (a) Police Authorities and Chief Officers are responsible for setting budgets and making operational decisions within them. The information sought is not available centrally.
390W - (b) Her Majesty's Customs and Excise spent as follows on detecting and deterring the smuggling of illegal drugs and other prohibited and restricted goods: £229 million in 2000/01; and £229.6 million in 2001/02. (source: HMCE Annual Reports)
- (c) It has been the policy of successive Governments not to disclose information concerning the breakdown in the allocation of resources of the Intelligence Agencies or provide information about their activities. However, in April 2001 it was exceptionally announced that the Security and Intelligence Agencies had been awarded additional funding to aid the fight against crime in the areas of drug trafficking and people smuggling. The amounts allocated were:
£ 2001/02 2002/03 2003/04 (i). drugs trafficking 5.9m 6.6m 7.7m (iii). people smuggling 0.6m 0.5m 0.6m