The Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons visited the Netherlands on 2 and 3 November. The visit was part of the Committee's Inquiry into the Cocaine Trade. The MPs visited Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and the Maasvlakte port area near Rotterdam to find out what measures the Dutch authorities are taking to stop the smuggling of cocaine and other drugs, as the Netherlands is a major transit route for drugs destined for the UK.

The Committee was impressed by the measures which have been put in place at Schiphol Airport, including the 100 percent checks on flights arriving from certain high-risk destinations, and the facilities to detect packages smuggled by individual passengers as well as those aimed at the larger quantities smuggled as freight. In Rotterdam the Dutch Customs gave the Committee an overview of the anti-smuggling measures in the container port, including the use of container scanners and sniffer dogs. 

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