Cigarette smuggling has Customs wheezing

Customs officials have been accused of missing by nearly one billion a target for seizing smuggled cigarettes.

The Tories said the goal had "gone up in smoke". But Customs and Excise said they had exceeded targets to cut the proportion of illegal cigarette sales. They insisted the number of illegal cigar-ettes imported into Britain had also fallen.

Customs and Excise impounded around 2.5 billion cigarettes during operations against smugglers in the last financial year. That was far short of the target to seize 3.5 billion cigarettes, according to an autumn progress report published yesterday.

A Customs spokeswoman said the quantity of illegal imports had fallen by 5 per cent last year, and the department had exceeded its target to limit the size of the illegal tobacco market in Britain.

There was embarrassment for the Chancellor Gordon Brown as the department revealed that a key cross-Government target had been condemned as "crude and selective" across Whitehall. Treasury ministers are formally responsible for Customs and Excise. The Customs report attacked the value-for-money goal, which calls on departments to assess progress towards targets against the money spent on trying to achieve them.

It warned: "We, along with other departments, have had considerable difficulties with the construction of this new and complex value for money target, which is mandatory across Government. This target is a relatively crude selective measure."

Michael Howard, the Shadow Chancellor, said: "The department's comments on Labour's targets are damning ... and [it] says it does not reflect the work done by Customs and Excise. What an extraordinary state of affairs. A department headed by Gordon Brown is critical of targets set by ... Gordon Brown."