Health Bill

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in the debate on the Second Reading of this very important Bill, which will improve the well-being and health of women, men and children in the UK. I want briefly to concentrate on two aspects of the Bill: smoking in public places and the proposals for the ophthalmology service. I was fortunate enough to be drawn fourth in the ballot for private Members’ Bills in the last Session of the previous Parliament. In fact, I think that mine was the last Bill to be debated on Second Reading before the general election was called. The title of my Bill was Smoking in Public Places (Wales), and I was aided in proposing it by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), who is Chairman of the Select Committee on Health, and my hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Mrs. Williams), who is not in the Chamber. The purpose of my Bill was to call on the Westminster Government to enable the National Assembly for Wales to make its own decision about any smoking restriction that would apply in Wales. I am very pleased indeed that that is proposed in the Bill. Under part 1, decisions about smoking in Wales will be delegated to the Assembly, which will be able to determine its own restrictions, so I warmly welcome that delegation of power to the Assembly. The Welsh Assembly has a long-standing commitment to ban smoking in workplaces and public places. It first debated and voted on the subject almost four years ago, when the Culture Minister in Wales, Alan Pugh, AM, proposed that"““the National Assembly for Wales . . . calls upon the UK Government to bring forward a public Bill relating to Wales which would provide that the Assembly could . . . prohibit all smoking with tobacco in . . . public buildings . . . The purpose and effect of any such Bill . . . would be to reduce the exposure of employees and members of the public to the well-documented and proven life-threatening dangers caused by environmental tobacco smoke””." The motion was passed by 39 votes to 10 and received the support of all parties. Four years later, we are enacting such a Bill. Subsequent to that vote, and after the introduction of private Members’ Bills in the other place by Baroness Finlay, a well-known palliative care consultant in Cardiff, and Lord Faulkner, who has already been mentioned, the Assembly set up the Committee on Smoking in Public Places, which was chaired by the Swansea, East Assembly Member, Val Lloyd. The purpose of the Committee was to examine developments in Ireland and other countries in which a ban had been enacted and to look at the debate in the UK. The Committee reported in May and the Assembly debated its report on 25 May. A motion in support of the report was carried by 40 votes to nine. I thus have absolute confidence that smoking will be banned in all public places and workplaces in Wales after consultation and an introductory period. I am pleased that that will be able to happen as a result of the Bill. The Committee asked for powers to introduce a Bill to ban smoking in all enclosed workplaces and public places within two to three years. It recommended several exceptions, some of which have been mentioned today, such as"““private dwellings, which may also be a place of work; . . . designated areas in long-stay hospital units . . . residential and nursing homes . . . prisons””" and"““designated bedrooms or suites in hotels and guest houses, which are occupied solely by a smoker.””" That is what happens in Ireland. I am glad that Wales will be able to go its own way on smoking. I hope that the Government will rethink their proposals for a partial ban in England. There is overwhelming evidence in support of a total ban and the weight of opinion is in favour of that. The Government have a unique opportunity to use the Bill to help to prevent some of the misery that is inflicted by smoking. Why wait? I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that most countries have progressed to a complete ban by stages, starting with a partial ban. However, we have the experience of those countries behind us. Why do we have to wait until more people die because of smoking-related illnesses that could have been avoided? We also know about the example of Ireland, which I visited a year ago with the all-party group on smoking and health. In Ireland, we have a near neighbour that had the vision to move ahead with a complete ban. The Government want to be bold and radical, so this is their opportunity to move ahead with a complete ban. As other hon. Members have said, the hospitality industry wants a level playing field with no exemptions. The protection for people who work in pubs in which a ban will not be in place will obviously not be the same as that for people who work in places in which there is a ban. There is a suggestion that smoking will be banned in the bar areas of pubs in which food is not served, but it is impossible to draw a line around a bar across which smoke may not pass. The proposal is unworkable. The Bill, as it stands, will not protect the health of all bar staff. Such a disparity cannot be fair. A partial ban would cause smokers to move from pubs to clubs and some pubs will stop serving food. The hospitality industry says that the proposal is unworkable. I think of city centre pubs in which no food is served and to which lots of young people go. Those young people are the ones who will continue to be exposed to cigarette smoke under the present proposals. I am sure that that is not what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wants. Hon. Members have mentioned health inequalities. The health arguments for a complete ban are overwhelming. The fact that Liam Donaldson told the Health Committee that he considered resigning when his advice was not accepted is overwhelming evidence that the Government should not go ahead with their present plans. My first job was in Sully hospital, a heart and chest hospital in the Vale of Glamorgan, south Wales. Many people coughed their lives away in those wards and I clearly remember their painful deaths. We cannot stop people smoking—indeed, one could say that they have the right to do so—but we can stop them inflicting their smoke on other people so that in public places, at least, people will not have to breathe other people’s smoke. The debate and public opinion has moved ahead rapidly. What would have been inconceivable five years ago is now, I think, totally acceptable. The Government have to move too, so I urge them to reconsider and, at the very least, allow Labour Members a free vote on the issue. On optometry, I visited a community optometrist and a representative of the community optometric committee, at his request, in Pontprennau in my constituency last week. He wanted me to mention the concern felt by opticians and ophthalmologists in Wales about the proposals. They will not affect Welsh practitioners as things stand, but he was concerned about devolving the budget to primary care trusts. The opticians think that that will inevitably be capped and allow the PCT to select the people with whom they wish to contract. They fear that that could lead to a restricted service to patients. Huge progress has been made in ophthalmology in Wales. Optometric practitioners can refer eye patients directly to consultants and surgeons in the hospital without going via the GP. They fear that the progress will be affected by the proposals if they go ahead in England. I ask the Minister to consider the implications of those on ophthalmology and to reconsider the proposals on smoking.