Member

Finally, my noble friend mentioned crime. I do not know that we take this sufficiently seriously. We are not talking simply about crime; we are talking about the utter degradation of many of our high streets. I have been shocked by the BBC’s coverage over the past few months of the investigations that it has undertaken into illegal cigarette sales in shops on high streets. I have not witnessed this myself where I live, to be perfectly frank, but, in many towns outside London, it is absolutely the case that high streets have been taken over by a series of illegal businesses purportedly selling vegetables and the occasional packet of cornflakes but actually engaged in the systematic sale of illegal cigarettes. As my noble friend said, this can, of course, easily connect to drug crime.