Health Bill

My Lords, I shall bat that one quickly to the Minister, who used it in his opening speech. The noble Lord was not present at the time. This is a pretty good trade-off for some limitation on smokers’ freedom to smoke. Part 1 is entitled ““Smoking””, and contains little of which we are not aware. Members of the other place comprehensively made their views felt on a free vote, and many congratulations are due to them on placing the health of the whole nation before any sectional interests. This has been a long battle, but praise where praise is due. The events of 14 February made it all worth while. The honourable Member for North-West Leicestershire, David Taylor, deserves much credit for his tenacity and determination in getting at the truth about the effects of both smoking and passive smoking. The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and I had the great experience of going on a fact-finding tour to Ireland some 18 months ago under the leadership of David Taylor, and I can tell you that he worked assiduously and was determined to get to the truth about the effects of both smoking and passive smoking. The facts are incontrovertible; I plead with those who are still sceptics to research the literature and read the debates. The evidence of the huge detrimental effect of smoking on the health of all of us is overwhelming. This will be a short contribution. All I want to do at this stage is to flag up the issues which I think need further explanation and those that I think have been overlooked. First, will the Minister explain to us, either today or later in the passage of the Bill, what safeguards will be put in place under Clause 3(2) to ensure that the residents of care homes who do not smoke will not be subjected to passive smoking arising from the actions of residents who do smoke? The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, mentioned this, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell of Babergh. Similarly, what would be the position of visitors to care homes? Would they be subjected to the effects of passive smoking? Some visitors go to care homes to see their loved ones many times a week and sometimes spend many hours there. How will they be protected? Still on the same subsection, will university halls of residence be included as an exemption? I hope not. There must be sympathy for elderly folk in care homes who have smoked all their lives. When their lives are drawing to a close, it would be most unkind to deprive them of what they think is their only pleasure, or probably addiction. But students? No. Secondly—the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell of Babergh, also mentioned this—will the Palace of Westminster be an exempt area, or will every part of the Palace come under the law? Let us push for it. Finally, I have just three general points to make. I congratulate the Government on the provision in Chapter 2, at Clause 13(2), that the age specified in an order under subsection (1) may not be lower than 16. The Minister rightly mentioned this in his opening speech and I hope that the consultation will be even more positive. I heartily commend the Government for allowing a free vote on the subject of a partial or total smoking ban. I sincerely hope that we shall also have a free vote in this House. May I make a plea that we look again at the Irish experience and avoid one of the unforeseen consequences? When entering a restaurant, a café, a coffee shop or a pub in Ireland, one must inevitably go through a wall of smoke, a most nasty experience, which results in one’s entrance being accompanied by coughing and watering eyes. There should be some way of putting a cordon sanitaire around the entrance to public places. I look forward to the Committee and further stages of the Bill and hope and pray that, on the issue of smoking, sanity will prevail.