In 2006, Parliament introduced stringent rules requiring all UK tobacco manufacturers to control their supply chains. These rules required them to take steps to avoid supplying cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco to persons who are likely to smuggle them into the UK or resupply them to other persons who are likely to do the same.

Tobacco manufacturers can face penalties of up to £5m for failing to comply with the rules.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) robustly challenge tobacco manufacturers’ supply chain policies and procedures to ensure their continued compliance with the rules. This has involved ongoing contact and regular meetings between HMRC’s Large Business Team and manufacturers since the legislation was introduced.

One aspect of this ongoing contact is the requirement that manufacturers inspect seizures of over 100,000 cigarettes or 50kg of hand rolling tobacco and provide a summary of how those goods, if confirmed genuine, got in to the hands of smugglers. Large Business review and challenge these summaries to ensure manufacturers have taken appropriate action, in line with their own published supply chain policies.

Due to taxpayer confidentiality it is not possible to provide comment on the progress of HMRC’s discussions with individual businesses about their supply chain controls.

In 2006, Parliament introduced stringent rules requiring all UK tobacco manufacturers to control their supply chains. These rules required them to take steps to avoid supplying cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco to persons who are likely to smuggle them into the UK or resupply them to other persons who are likely to do the same.

Tobacco manufacturers can face penalties of up to £5m for failing to comply with the rules.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) robustly challenge tobacco manufacturers’ supply chain policies and procedures to ensure their continued compliance with the rules. This has involved ongoing contact and regular meetings between HMRC’s Large Business Team and manufacturers since the legislation was introduced.

One aspect of this ongoing contact is the requirement that manufacturers inspect seizures of over 100,000 cigarettes or 50kg of hand rolling tobacco and provide a summary of how those goods, if confirmed genuine, got in to the hands of smugglers. Large Business review and challenge these summaries to ensure manufacturers have taken appropriate action, in line with their own published supply chain policies.

Due to taxpayer confidentiality it is not possible to provide comment on the progress of HMRC’s discussions with individual businesses about their supply chain controls.

In 2006, Parliament introduced stringent rules requiring all UK tobacco manufacturers to control their supply chains. These rules required them to take steps to avoid supplying cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco to persons who are likely to smuggle them into the UK or resupply them to other persons who are likely to do the same.

Tobacco manufacturers can face penalties of up to £5m for failing to comply with the rules.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) robustly challenge tobacco manufacturers’ supply chain policies and procedures to ensure their continued compliance with the rules. This has involved ongoing contact and regular meetings between HMRC’s Large Business Team and manufacturers since the legislation was introduced.

One aspect of this ongoing contact is the requirement that manufacturers inspect seizures of over 100,000 cigarettes or 50kg of hand rolling tobacco and provide a summary of how those goods, if confirmed genuine, got in to the hands of smugglers. Large Business review and challenge these summaries to ensure manufacturers have taken appropriate action, in line with their own published supply chain policies.

Due to taxpayer confidentiality it is not possible to provide comment on the progress of HMRC’s discussions with individual businesses about their supply chain controls.

In 2006, Parliament introduced stringent rules requiring all UK tobacco manufacturers to control their supply chains. These rules required them to take steps to avoid supplying cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco to persons who are likely to smuggle them into the UK or resupply them to other persons who are likely to do the same.

Tobacco manufacturers can face penalties of up to £5m for failing to comply with the rules.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) robustly challenge tobacco manufacturers’ supply chain policies and procedures to ensure their continued compliance with the rules. This has involved ongoing contact and regular meetings between HMRC’s Large Business Team and manufacturers since the legislation was introduced.

One aspect of this ongoing contact is the requirement that manufacturers inspect seizures of over 100,000 cigarettes or 50kg of hand rolling tobacco and provide a summary of how those goods, if confirmed genuine, got in to the hands of smugglers. Large Business review and challenge these summaries to ensure manufacturers have taken appropriate action, in line with their own published supply chain policies.

Due to taxpayer confidentiality it is not possible to provide comment on the progress of HMRC’s discussions with individual businesses about their supply chain controls.

In 2006, Parliament introduced stringent rules requiring all UK tobacco manufacturers to control their supply chains. These rules required them to take steps to avoid supplying cigarettes and hand rolling tobacco to persons who are likely to smuggle them into the UK or resupply them to other persons who are likely to do the same.

Tobacco manufacturers can face penalties of up to £5m for failing to comply with the rules.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) robustly challenge tobacco manufacturers’ supply chain policies and procedures to ensure their continued compliance with the rules. This has involved ongoing contact and regular meetings between HMRC’s Large Business Team and manufacturers since the legislation was introduced.

One aspect of this ongoing contact is the requirement that manufacturers inspect seizures of over 100,000 cigarettes or 50kg of hand rolling tobacco and provide a summary of how those goods, if confirmed genuine, got in to the hands of smugglers. Large Business review and challenge these summaries to ensure manufacturers have taken appropriate action, in line with their own published supply chain policies.

Due to taxpayer confidentiality it is not possible to provide comment on the progress of HMRC’s discussions with individual businesses about their supply chain controls.

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing the House’s attention to this issue. I am aware of that. I know, for example, that the investment the Government have made through Border Force, including the extra officers, is helping, and I am confident that in all circumstances we can keep trade flowing.

As previously advised in the response to Question 218262, the UK-France Migration Committee meets on a bi-monthly basis and is hosted alternately by the UK Home Office and French Interior Ministry. It is not Home Office policy to release detailed information on meetings that ministers and/or officials attend

As regards payments to the French Government, no additional payments have been made beyond those detailed in the response to Question 217548, dated 12th February 2019.

As previously advised in the response to Question 218262, the UK-France Migration Committee meets on a bi-monthly basis and is hosted alternately by the UK Home Office and French Interior Ministry. It is not Home Office policy to release detailed information on meetings that ministers and/or officials attend

As regards payments to the French Government, no additional payments have been made beyond those detailed in the response to Question 217548, dated 12th February 2019.

Access to justice remains a fundamental right and the Government are committed to ensuring everyone can get the support they need to access the justice system. We recently launched our legal support action plan, with a series of changes to enhance the breadth of legal support made available.

My hon. Friend is clearly easily pleased by my answers. Last year we spent £1.6 billion alone on legal aid, and that will continue. Our legal support action plan includes such measures as reviewing the means test for legal aid and the criminal legal aid fee scheme, so we constantly look to ensure the level of support is correct and appropriate.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and that is what the Government are doing: investing in ultra-low emission vehicles; increasing the capital allowances budget, now extended to 2023, for EV charge points; announcing a £400 million fund to get private sector investment in getting those charge points rolled out across the country; and, through the plug-in car grant, giving generous subsidies to help people to buy their first electric vehicle.

The National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) is part of a new, wider, "whole system" approach which will deliver a significant improvement in the UK's response to serious and organised crime. For the first time, the NECC brings together law enforcement and justice agencies, government departments, regulatory bodies and the private sector with a shared objective of driving down serious organised economic crime, protecting the public and safe-guarding the prosperity and reputation of the UK as a financial centre.

The NECC was formally launched on 5 November 2018. It includes officers from the NCA, HM Revenue and Customs, City of London Police, Serious Fraud Office, Financial Conduct Authority, Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office. As the NECC evolves throughout 2019 and beyond it will build wider partnerships across the public sector, with regulators and the private sector, particularly with those businesses at risk from economic crime.

The National Economic Crime Centre (NECC) is part of a new, wider, "whole system" approach which will deliver a significant improvement in the UK's response to serious and organised crime. For the first time, the NECC brings together law enforcement and justice agencies, government departments, regulatory bodies and the private sector with a shared objective of driving down serious organised economic crime, protecting the public and safe-guarding the prosperity and reputation of the UK as a financial centre.

The NECC was formally launched on 5 November 2018. The government recognises that the NECC forms an integral part of an enhanced system-wide response to tackling economic crime. For financial year 2019/20, the government has committed an additional £48 million investment to tackle illicit finance. This investment will fund the development of new capabilities including the NECC. Funding for financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22 will be subject to the outcome of the spending review.

The Economic Crime Strategic Board, co-chaired by the Chancellor and the Home Secretary, met for the first time on 14 January 2019. The Board, which includes senior representatives from the public and private sectors, was established to deliver a joint public-private response to tackle economic crime. The Board will set priorities, direct resources and scrutinise performance against the economic crime threat.

In its inaugural meeting, the Board commissioned the development of a shared public-private Economic Crime Plan and the development of a joint public-private economic crime threat update. The Economic Crime Plan will set out the public and private sectors’ collective ambition to combat economic crime and set out a series of concrete actions that both sectors will collectively undertake to enhance the UK’s economic crime response.

Since January, ongoing official-level work has taken place between the public and private sectors to deliver these products for the Board’s next meeting in July.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising a very important issue. I send our condolences to his constituent’s family, particularly that young son who will grow up without his mother. The issue of post-natal depression and people returning to work and balancing childcare and work responsibilities is important. We are looking into a new returners programme to help those who are returning to the workplace. My hon. Friend the Minister for Mental Health is doing some good work on the whole question of mental health provision, particularly for mothers with young babies. It is right for my hon. Friend to have raised this area of concern, which the Government are looking at in a number of ways. We will aim to ensure that nobody else suffers in the way that his constituent and her family did.

I agree that it is in everyone’s interests that we co-operate with all our friends in the European Union, and in particular with Ireland. My hon. Friend is right. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom—a separate jurisdiction and a separate sovereign country—and therefore there are differences. As I have said, the best way for us to leave the European Union—the way that will protect so many of the things that have been achieved in the past 21 years—is to leave with a negotiated agreement.