Health Bill

I agreed with two things that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) said. The first is that we all owe a great debt to Sir Richard Doll, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman spoke for the whole House in what he said on that subject. Secondly, the Government’s policy on the subject of statutory smoking bans is, in the right hon. Gentleman’s opinion and in mine, half-baked and unenforceable. The difference between us is that unlike the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb), who both draw from that the conclusion that we should proceed to an outright ban, I shall speak against the principle of statutory smoking bans. I do so, as the House is aware, as a former Secretary of State for Health. It would have been an unpopular argument for a Secretary of State for Health in office to advance. I also do it from a personal point of view, as a lifelong non-smoker and somebody who has a deep dislike of smoky atmospheres—so much so that when I go into a pub that has a smoky atmosphere, I go out again, because I do not like it. That is my freedom as an individual, and it is that freedom which lies at the base of my remarks. As Secretary of State, I of course received advice from the chief medical officer, and successive chief medical officers have argued in favour of statutory action against smoking. I also met many, many clinical staff who were emotionally committed to the principle that it was part of the Government’s job to tilt the system more heavily against smokers. However, we should not proceed on the basis of the Government’s half-baked proposal, and still less in the direction that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras and the hon. Member for Northavon advocate. I shall set out briefly why. At root, my reason is that like my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), I have always described myself as a liberal Conservative. By that I mean, among other things, that I think it is part of our job in this place to defend private space against the well-meaning aspirations of a well-meaning state. I have no doubt that the clinicians who argue for statutory smoking bans do so for the very best of motives. I accord to the Secretary of State and to my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who argued from the Opposition Front Bench for a different form of compromise, the best of intentions, but sometimes we in this place should defend private space, particularly the private space of unfashionable minorities, among whom we should now number smokers. Against that background, I shall go through the arguments that are used to justify the proposals for smoking bans. First—this is the weakest argument of all, which, with respect to him, was advanced by an hon. Member from the Liberal Benches—there are those who say, ““It will help me give up smoking””. It is not a safe guide for public policy to legislate to encourage somebody to do something that they want to do for their own private benefit. Of course, as a private citizen, one to another, I would encourage people to give up smoking. As a result of the work of Sir Richard Doll and his successors, we all acknowledge that smoking causes cancer and therefore premature death. We should not be mealy-mouthed about that, but we should not use the power vested in us as legislators to impose on people a private benefit that they may wish for themselves, but which they apparently cannot deliver for themselves without legislative backing. That is no basis for public policy.