§ The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Healey)The Chief Secretary and I have today presented to Parliament this year's spring departmental report for HM Customs and Excise (Cm 6224).
The spring report provides an interim update on Customs' activities and sets out the department's priorities and expenditure plans for the coming year. This year it confirms strong growth in VAT receipts, which are more than £2.5 billion ahead of the Budget 2003 forecast—including an estimated £1 billion from our crackdown on "missing trader" VAT fraud. It reports continued success in tackling tobacco smuggling, and over £30 million of criminal assets seized. The spring report also outlines the major changes facing the department following the announcement of 39WS plans to create a serious organised crime agency and a single revenue department—Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
Alongside this update, the spring report marks a change in policy in relation to the publication of statistics of Customs' seizures. I have decided that Customs will include in their annual and spring reports summary seizure data in relation to those prohibitions and restrictions that they enforce at the frontier but which are not already included in the reports as part of updates on PSA priorities. Customs have not published this information in their annual reports since reporting was streamlined after 1999, but will do so in each spring and annual report from now on.
There has been continuing interest in the number of seizures Customs make in the areas where they protect society, including particular interest in Customs' new anti-smuggling role on imported meat and other products of animal origin. Customs will therefore publish seizure information on:
meat and other products of animal origin;articles seized under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES);plants and plant-based goods;pornography and paedophilia;firearms, offensive weapons and explosives;various other prohibited and restricted goods.The data published in this report show that, in the nine months from April to December 2003, Customs made 9,571 seizures of illegal meat and other animal products with a total weight in excess of 119 tonnes. In comparison, there were 2,053 seizures by all agencies involved in these controls in 2001–02, a figure that increased to 7,819 in 2002–03.
Customs will continue to consider requests for further information in accordance with the "Code of Practice on Access to Government Information". They will only withhold information under exemption 4 (law enforcement and legal proceedings) or exemption 7 (effective management and operations of public service) of that code where information would be of value to those who seek to circumvent customs controls or in the clearest cases of risk to the effective management of their operations.