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Finance Bill

It is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman was not here for, and unable to contribute to, the Second Reading debate. I will try to get the exact answer to his question, but the customs powers relate to the examination of goods imported in postal packets. Customs does not have powers to open or read correspondence. We are trying to tackle organised tobacco smuggling through the post—a point that was made in an intervention on the Financial Secretary when we were talking about tobacco rates and the incidence of smuggling.