Health Bill

No, I cannot give way; I do not have time. We want more effort from the Government. They have begun to deal with the problem, but the message is that Ministers, Labour and Tory, should listen to Back Benchers more, instead of listening to civil servants, and give us at least some credit for possibly knowing what we are talking about. Legislation and administration would be much better, and we could have started to combat MRSA a lot earlier, had people listened. On smoking, we are told that the chief medical officer nearly resigned. He should have resigned, in my view. It is not very brave of him to say that he nearly resigned. It is an extremely important issue. In a small way, I quit one course of my career partly because of smoking. When I was first elected to this place, I was persuaded to be a Whip. Let me share with the House the fact that I did not like that at all and found it very uncomfortable. I aspired to more than reading out the folder every night and being a choreographer. In opposition, the Whips were all men, so I qualified on that count, but they were all smokers—it was like pea soup in the Whips room—which was one of things that made me quit. The situation was offensive and I could not alter it. I remember sitting there thinking, ““I don’t need to put up with this””, which is when I went to see Mr. Foster and said, ““I don’t want to be a Whip.”” The rest is history. The right hon. Member for Loughborough—