HC Deb 05 April 2000 vol 347 cc493-4W
Mr. Ruane

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he has taken to advertise the Bootlegging Hotline; and what the budget was for advertising it. [117554]

Dawn Primarolo

[holding answer 3 April 2000]: In order to improve efficiency, HM Customs and Excise amalgamated all its hotlines into one number—Customs Confidential on 0800 59 5000. On 21 July 1999, I launched a public information campaign to highlight the hotline in relation to tobacco, alcohol and drugs smuggling.

The publicity campaign included: an advan that travelled throughout England, Scotland and Wales, to ports, airports and summer tourist events leaflet distributed to all cross-channel operators as well as being inserted in ticket wallets limited amount of national press advertising a radio news tape distributed to all national and local radio stations wallet cards for distribution at Customs events and to cross channel haulage vehicle window stickers for cars and lorries flyers distributed via the DVLA with license renewals—the flyer will also be produced in Welsh.

We will be expanding the public information campaign considerably to focus primarily on tobacco smuggling. The Customs Confidential hotline number will continue to feature widely as part of the campaign.

The overall budget for the campaign was £145,000.

Mr. Ruane

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many calls the Bootlegging Hotline has received in each month since its introduction; and how many successful prosecutions have resulted from the Bootlegging Hotline. [117553]

Dawn Primarolo

[holding answer 3 April 2000]: The "Bootlegging"" hotline was consolidated into the Customs Confidential hotline on 21 July 1999. This hotline is for reporting of all information and suspicious activity which may be of interest to the Department.

Since June 1999 the total number of calls by month relating to "Bootlegging" are:

Month Number
June 788
July 846
August 944
September 851
October 742
November 912
December 966
January 680
February 774
March 924
Total 18,427

It is not possible to state how many prosecutions are directly related to calls received on the hotline but it is estimated that 70 per cent. of the calls provide valuable intelligence which is having a major input into the middle and lower end of the tobacco smuggling problem.