Health Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. I am proud to move the Bill’s Third Reading. I particularly want to thank the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) and the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) who have done a superb job in piloting the Bill through Committee and much of the Report stage that we have just had. [Interruption.] Despite some of the sedentary comments by Opposition Members, I also pay tribute to Members on both sides who have adopted a positive and constructive attitude to the elements of a Bill that not only protects public health inside and outside hospital but that will further improve the performance and efficiency of the national health service. Of course, the main focus of our debate and of public attention has been on the Bill’s smoking provisions. This evening, the House voted absolutely decisively to introduce a complete ban on smoking in all enclosed public places and workplaces, including all licensed premises and private members’ clubs. We have therefore not only delivered on the manifesto promise to ban smoking in virtually all public places and workplaces on which we were elected 10 months ago but have gone additional steps further. That reflects the excellent debate that took place on the smoking provisions in which I and my hon. Friends, who genuinely believed, and always have, that the arguments about private members’ clubs were finely balanced, have none the less voted for a complete ban, particularly in the interests of ensuring a level playing field between different businesses such as small pubs and members’ clubs. I recognise that there will be some disappointment among at least some members of private clubs at the outcome of the vote, but I nevertheless believe that it was the right one. The comprehensive ban for which the House has decisively voted will mean, over time, that some 600,000 people, beyond those who would have otherwise given up smoking, will be led to abandon it. The result of that and the protection that we are giving to people from second-hand smoking will be thousands of people’s lives being saved and thousands of families being spared the grief of losing a loved one prematurely. That is why I think today’s vote and the Bill will be seen as historic legislation on public health equivalent to, for instance, the legislation on seat belts of some decades ago. I am also delighted that, although it was not debated this afternoon, we have also taken power to raise the age for the purchase of tobacco from 16 to 18 following the consultation in which we engaged. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis), who has campaigned vigorously and effectively on that issue. Other vital provisions include the statutory code of practice on MRSA and associated health care infections. It will be very widely welcomed not only by the public, who quite rightly expect every hospital to get down their MRSA and other infection rates, but by staff in both the NHS and the independent sector. The Bill will also provide for much stronger management of controlled drugs in response to some of the shortcomings identified in the Shipman inquiry and will improve safeguards against the very small minority of people who would divert those drugs for personal abuse, financial gain or even, regrettably, for criminal purposes. It will also help us to continue improving and modernising NHS pharmacy services, ensuring, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, that we can continue expanding the services offered by our pharmacists and make them much more convenient to patients. I was pleased to read the discussion in Committee during which the provision of ophthalmic services in England was praised. Although there was concern that the Bill would tamper with a service that is already excellent, I hope that hon. Members on both sides are reassured that by removing the restrictions on with whom a primary trust may contract to provide ophthalmic services the Bill will help to increase patient choice and thus continue to improve services. The new framework for ophthalmic services will ensure that we will be able to provide enhanced services in the community of the kind that are often available at present only in hospitals. That will be in line with the direction that we have just spelled out in the White Paper.