Clause 2
Finance (No. 2) Bill
4:30 pm
Philip Dunne (Ludlow, Conservative)
Mr. O’Hara, I thank you for calling me after the intermission. I am particularly grateful for the point of order, too, because it has given the hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) time to take his place. I was in mid-sentence and using his intervention in the previous sitting to illustrate not the point that he was trying to make but the reverse. If I interpreted his remarks correctly, he suggested that it would be possible to identify whether foreign-based manufacturers were likely to be selling to customers who might smuggle cigarettes or tobacco products into this country. The nature of the local market would indicate in itself whether the sale was of sufficient scale for the market to be prone to smuggling.
Some nations are small but active traders. This country has established most of its economic heritage on the back of trading with other larger and smaller nations. From my own experience, I know for example that the market of Hong Kong, with 6.5 million residents, is an entrepot to the market of greater China, with its more than 1 billion inhabitants.
I should be interested in whether the hon. Gentleman’s test was relevant to a customer of a tobacco-importing business in Hong Kong determining whether smuggling into this country was likely. I venture to suggest that it is an irrelevant test. The point remains, however, that the thrust of the clause is directed at UK-based manufacturers, rather than foreign manufacturers where the bulk of smuggled goods comes from.