Health Bill

I, too, participated in the Second Reading debate and served on the Standing Committee. It is right to praise the Ministers who steered the Bill through proceedings in this House and the Members who served on the Committee. Ministers listened to concerns expressed on Second Reading and acted in Committee. An example is the changes made on ophthalmic services. Ministers listened to cogent arguments put forward by my hon. Friends in Committee and acted on Report to make changes, the best example being on the minimum age for buying tobacco. All those Members—I hasten to add that I was not one of them, so I am not praising myself—who diligently chipped away, day after day, at the arguments about the distinction, as regards the smoking ban, between public houses that did and did not sell food have had their day. They exposed the weaknesses of that distinction and forced hon. Members to make a starker choice between the status quo and a complete ban. A pretty convincing opinion has been expressed in the House on a free vote. The proceedings have therefore been a success so far. One half of the process has been completed and the Bill will be off to the other place. However, as a postscript, I want to mention my disappointment about the process in this place. Through a spark of ingenuity, I persuaded House officials to accept that amendments about breast feeding came within the Bill’s remit. By a stroke of good fortune, the Committee Chairman selected them for debate. Alas, I was struck down by the timetable that was imposed on our deliberations in Committee. My new clauses on breast feeding probably constituted the one issue of substance that was never considered in Committee. The Speaker did not select them for debate today. They will not be considered in the context of the Bill in the House of Commons, but I believe that they raised important issues of public health and discrimination, which must be left for another day. I do not know whether the same spark of ingenuity can strike twice and enable me to find another way to raise those important matters in the near future, but I look forward to the guidance on breast feeding from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence later this year because we have a poor record in this country—