Member

When it comes to illicit tobacco products, Action on Smoking and Health, Trading Standards and the Government themselves maintain that illicit tobacco consumption is declining, repeatedly citing HMRC evidence that the illicit tobacco trade has shrunk by 90% since 2000 and that only 10% of the cigarettes consumed in 2023-24 were illicit, which amounts to some 2 billion illicit cigarettes. However, in giving evidence to the Business and Trade Select Committee in November, the deputy director of illicit finance at the National Crime Agency, Sal Melki, stated that the combined law enforcement agencies’ Operation Machinize had seized 4.5 billion illicit cigarettes in 2024 alone—thereby seizing 2.5 billion illicit cigarettes which, according to HMRC, should not exist. The stark reality is that no one knows the size and scale of the illicit tobacco market, but what has become glaringly apparent is that the Government refuse to waver from the narrative that it is in decline, even when the evidence clearly points in the opposite direction. We must learn the lessons from Australia, where organised criminals have taken control of the illicit tobacco and vapes market and violence and chaos have exploded on to Australia’s streets. The situation will, I fear, be worse here once the generational ban is in effect.