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Arrested UK Citizens

Mr. McWalter: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty's Government's policy on United Kingdom citizens arrested abroad being required to pay for embassy and consular services. [83723]

Mr. Robin Cook: British Nationals who are arrested or imprisoned overseas are not required to pay for consular assistance and advice.

They are required to pay for legal services, which consular officers cannot provide.

All fee-bearing consular services are published in the Consular Fees Order.

TREASURY

Correspondence

Mr. Field: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he plans to answer the letter from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead dated 12 April in respect of his constituent Colin Tierney. [84573]

Dawn Primarolo: A reply was sent to my right hon. Friend on 17 May.

Customs and Excise (Heathrow)

Mr. Hawkins: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to his answer of 26 April 1999, Official Report, column 56, concerning HM Customs and Excise staff at Heathrow, since 1 May 1997 in relation to Customs Cargo staff other than NIS at Heathrow, how many jobs have been lost in Customs Cargo; what is the reduction in staff of the import control teams; what steps are being taken to combat the increase in traffic of the undeclared excise goods from the Continent; how HM Customs and

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Excise plans to meet its obligations with regard to DTI documentary checks, CAP controls, community transit controls and anti counterfeit checks; and what is the estimated revenue loss from failure to detect undeclared excise goods. [84225]

Dawn Primarolo [holding answer 17 May 1999]: There are currently 222 staff years allocated to the Cargo Division at Heathrow. In Customs Cargo at Heathrow the following reductions have been made in staff since 1997:

Year to March 1998--10.5 Staff years (4 per cent.)


Year to March 1999--9 staff years (3.6 per cent.)


Year to March 2000--15 staff years (6.2 per cent.).

Of these reductions the following numbers were involved in import control:

1998--0


1999--0


2000--8.

The reductions in the current year have been made to reflect the movement of freight control inland as a result of the take up of Customs Freight Simplified Procedures (CFSP). The percentage of import entries at Heathrow now being processed via the CFSP system is 41.8 per cent.

The increase in traffic of undeclared excise goods from the continent is being addressed in a number of ways. During the last financial year a special exercise was run, under Customs risk testing programme, to target tobacco goods in freight. The exercise produced £53.085 in revenue over six weeks, of which all but £300 was for tobacco goods. The results of that exercise have been fed into Customs ongoing risk review. This will provide sharper and more focused targeting of staff onto those freight consignments and importers that are considered a risk to the revenue, together with better intelligence in trend analysis and identification.

DTI documentary checks and CAP control checks are subject to computer-based selection profiles. Community transit and anti-counterfeit checks are carried out by import and export control staff as part of their normal scrutiny and examination roles, using intelligence and risk analysis techniques to target resources effectively.

The estimated revenue loss from failure to detect undeclared excise goods at Heathrow Cargo is not known as all current estimates specifically exclude freight consignments. The revenue estimated as lost nationally through cigarette smuggling by air passengers is £50m per year. Further details on cross-border shopping and smuggling of alcohol and tobacco products were laid in the House of Commons Library on 19 November 1998.

Tobacco Smuggling

Ms Lawrence: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the revenue lost to the Exchequer through smuggling of tobacco. [76050]

Dawn Primarolo: In his Budget speech of 9 March, the Chancellor explained that in terms of the turnover of criminals' tobacco smuggling is now a £1½ billion business. That was an assessment by HM Customs and Excise based on their work in progress to monitor the scale of such smuggling (chiefly of cigarettes and

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hand-rolling tobacco). The provisional results of this work indicate that the total amount of revenue (excise duty and VAT) evaded in 1998 was perhaps around £1.7 billion.

Forms of tobacco duty evasion covered by this assessment include cross-Channel smuggling of cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco, smuggling by air passengers, diversion frauds and smuggling over very large consignments in freight.

HM Customs and Excise will continue to examine ways of measuring such smuggling, and are discussing with representatives of the tobacco industry ways of improving the methodologies used.

Mr. Whittingdale: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the loss of revenue due to illegal imports of tobacco products in 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2001-02, taking account of his Budget changes. [76569]

Dawn Primarolo: The forecast for tobacco revenue receipts for 1999-2000, published in the March 1999 Financial Statement and Budget Report, is £7 billion. This takes into account a range of factors including smuggling, forestalling behaviour by manufacturers, the affordability of tobacco products, trends in public health awareness, etc.

Budget

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will recalculate the figures used in paragraph 1.26 of the Red Book taking into account his July 1997 Budget and using an assumption for private car use of 8,300 miles in an average 1600cc car. [80855]

Dawn Primarolo: The impact of Budget 97, Budget 98 and Budget 99 measures on households is as follows:

over 20 million households gain, of which 7 million are households with children and 7 million are pensioner households;


on average, households will be £350 a year better off;


families with children will on average be £690 a year better off;


poorer families will also benefit: 700,000 children will be taken out of poverty;


working households will on average be £410 a year better off;


the new 10p rate of tax will halve the tax bill for 1.8 million, of whom 1.5 million are low-paid employees;


the Working Families Tax Credit will on average give low earning families an extra £24 a week, compared with Family Credit.

All the figures are relative to indexation and are in 1999-2000 prices. They reflect the impact on disposable income of measures included in the 1999, 1998 and July 1997 Budgets and taking effect over the four years from 1998-99, plus the impact of the national minimum wage. They are based on data from the ONS Family Expenditure Survey, the DSS Family Resources Survey and Inland Revenue's Survey of Personal Incomes.

Compared with the Red Book, the only extra measure included is the cut in the mortgage interest relief (MIR) tax credit rate from 15 per cent. to 10 per cent. which was announced in the July 1997 Budget and came into force in April 1998.

Estimating the impact of indirect taxes is imprecise as spending patterns vary widely between households with the same composition and income, with the consumption

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of the majority of goods and services far from universal. For example, just over half the adult population are in households paying vehicle excise duty.

Mr. Maude: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will estimate the effect in (a) 1999-2000 and (b) 2000-01 of his budgets to date on a married pensioner couple with a combined pension income of £18,000 plus £4,000 in dividend income, assuming that they drive 8,300 miles each year in a 1.6 litre car registered in 1974 and smoke 20 cigars each week; [78753]

(2) if he will estimate the effect in (a) 1999-2000 and (b) 2000-01 of his budgets to date on a married couple in England with one partner who smokes 20 cigarettes a day earning £25,000 per annum and the other earning £5,000 per annum, assuming that they have a mortgage of £40,000 and drive 8,300 miles each year in a two litre car with one 18 year old child in his first year of a four-year course at university in Scotland; [78751]

(3) if he will estimate the effect in (a) 1999-2000 and (b) 2000-01 of his budgets to date on a married couple with one partner earning £15,000 per annum as a self- employed road haulier who drives a 38-tonne diesel lorry 75,000 miles each year and the other partner being non- earning with two children aged 15 and 16, assuming that they have a £45,000 mortgage and smoke 20 cigarettes a day between them; [78750]

(4) if he will estimate the effect in (a) 1999-2000 and (b) 2000-01 of his budgets to date on a non-smoking married couple with one partner earning £50,000 per annum and the other earning £4,000 per annum in dividend income, assuming that they have a mortgage of £80,000 and drive 8,300 miles each year in a two litre car. [78752]

Dawn Primarolo: Information on the effect of the Budget on individuals and households is published in the Red Book and accompanying press notices. The reply to the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) sets out changes in disposable income after taking account of the effects of the last two Budgets.

Estimating the impact of indirect taxes is imprecise as spending patterns vary widely between households with the same composition and income, with the consumption of the majority of goods and services far from universal. For example, only around one third of adults are smokers, just over half the adult population are in households paying vehicle excise duty and around 10 per cent. of households pay air passenger duty.

This can be contrasted with direct taxes and benefits where at specified earnings and for particular household types there is a known benefit entitlement or tax liability.

The 1998 and 1999 Red Books set out the effect of the last two Budgets on:

cigarettes and cigars (1998 table 5.4--page 81), (1999 table 1.10--page 110);


for road fuels (1998 table 5.2--page 75), (1999 table 1.9-- page 109);


and VED HM Treasury Budget Press Notice number 16 (1998) and number 7 (1999).

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the assumptions used for the purposes of the calculations in paragraph 1.26 of the Red Book. [80852]

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Dawn Primarolo: All the figures given in paragraph 1.26 of the Budget 99 Report (the Red Book) are relative to indexation and are in 1999-2000 prices. They reflect the impact on disposable income of measures included in the 1999 and 1998 Budgets and taking effect over the three years from 1999-2000, plus the impact of the national minimum wage.

The figures are based on data from the ONS Family Expenditure Survey, the DSS Family Resources Survey and Inland Revenue's Survey of Personal Incomes.

Mr. Gibb: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assumptions were used for (a) car mileages and (b) pension contributions in the calculations used in paragraph 1.26 of the Red Book. [80851]

Dawn Primarolo: The figures in the Red Book are based on UK household expenditure and income patterns from the ONS Family Expenditure Survey, the DSS Family Resources Survey and Inland Revenue's Survey of Personal Incomes.

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