Health Bill

It is likely to be very dangerous, but I do not want to go into all the issues about drinking. I see that the clock is ticking away and I do not know whether I have any added time for interventions this afternoon, so I will move on very quickly to what I want to say. Listening to the Government’s arguments, one of the conclusions that I reach—it may be that no one else, including the Health Committee, reaches this conclusion—is that the Government do not want to introduce a complete ban because they believe that it is unpopular. I think that they are wrong. I beg to differ with them. I will briefly look at two issues. First, hon. Members will know that the Office for National Statistics conducts an annual smoking-related behaviour and attitude survey. In the autumn of 2003, 20 per cent. of people believed that no smoking should be allowed anywhere and 51 per cent. believed that there should be mainly no smoking, but that there should be separate areas where smoking could take place. In the autumn of 2004, those figures had changed to 31 per cent. and 47 per cent. respectively. The fact that the second figure had dropped a bit is understandable. Action on Smoking and Health got YouGov to do the same survey in August 2005. First, people were asked the straight question that the ONS asks in its surveys. It found that 41 per cent. of people believed that no smoking should be allowed anywhere in places they visit when they go out, while 39 per cent. of people believed that there should be separate smoking areas. YouGov then told people about the science of secondary smoking before asking the question again, and found that the proportion of people who said that they would ban smoking in all public places rose to 52 per cent. The evidence shows what has happened in other parts of the world where a ban has been brought in, so I would like to think that we could act a bit more strongly.