Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty
Finance Bill
10:00 am
Mr Oliver Letwin (West Dorset, Conservative)
In a moment. I agree with the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) that when someone starts buying illicit cigarettes, they take a deep, and wrong, action and put themselves in a position where their whole relationship to the state and to authority begins to go wrong. That is not to say that everyone who buys illicit cigarettes moves on to other more serious crimes—that would be a crazy assertion—but it is very dangerous. The blame lies fairly and squarely with that individual, but there is something wrong about an arrangement in which many of our citizens engage in that blameworthy activity.