Health Bill

My Lords, my noble friend has now added to her speech and anticipated that she meant to say it and forgot to say it but now believes that what I am saying is totally irrelevant. Either way, it is not helpful and a little bit over the top, for the other place to totally ignore developments in this area. If we take it that some people want to smoke, cannot stop smoking or get enjoyment from smoking, and if ventilation is sufficiently improved so that the effect of passive smoking is negligible, that is particularly relevant. It is not acceptable in a society in which one-quarter of our population want to smoke—okay, it is a minority, but it is one-quarter—for those means that make it possible for them to do so to be totally pushed aside and ignored. I turn to the nature of the ban itself. I read the Labour manifesto, as I suppose that all those of us who are interested in politics read our opponents’ manifestos—I even bought a copy; and I have noted what the Labour Party’s policy was on smoking, because we have had debates in your Lordships’ House on that subject, in which I have taken part. I noted the public consultation Choosing Health; indeed, I read it. That document came forward with some exemptions. There is only one that I want to focus on: the situation of genuine membership clubs, which are not commercial clubs but are controlled by the members, who set the policy of the club and have annual general meetings in which they can change the policy, if they do not like it. The Secretary of State, on the morning of the Second Reading in the other place, recommended that membership clubs should be exempt; by the evening she had changed her mind and voted in the opposite Lobby. I am not sure that too many members of the public can have much faith in a Secretary of State who is such a will o’ the wisp. Licensed members’ clubs, in relation to the debate in the other place, were simply rolled up. There was a sort of euphoria from the health people, who wanted to ban all smoking and anything to do with smoking—and out of the window went the licensed clubs. Nobody was worried about the liberties or freedoms of people in those clubs and what they wanted to do. Nobody recognised or remembered the genuine nature of those clubs; they were all totally ignored and swept into prohibition. The Government are totally ignoring what the public wants, which is a smoking policy that provides a choice of facilities for smokers and non-smokers alike; they seem to forget all about that and ride over the nature of those clubs. Those clubs hold a certificate, as noble Lords will know, and are run by and for the benefit of the members. They can decide, as members, what they do, at their annual general meetings. Even the Under-Secretary of State in another place said:"““Private clubs are exempted on the basis that their members are adults who choose to sign up to the regulations of that club. They have a say in . . . whether smoking should be allowed at all or in certain areas. Many clubs already apply rules in that area, including no smoking in bars””.—[Official Report, Commons Standing Committee E, 8/12/05; col. 87.]" I shall table amendments in Committee to restore the right of membership clubs to choose whether they wish to ban smoking. In passing, rural pubs seem destined to be lost to us all. I shall not develop the point now, but I may do so in Committee. I listened to the Minister trot out statistics and forecasts and have heard other statistics bandied around in the Chamber. I think that the Minister said that the BMA quoted a figure of 30 people a day dying from smoking, but the age at which they were dying was left undefined. Naturally, everybody dies, so it is not a very meaningful statistic. We are told that thousands of lives will be saved, which is very emotive. Given that we are down to 25 per cent of people smoking, that figure seems to me a bit questionable and highly unlikely. Again, although I am sorry to come back to my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, I thought I heard her say—I shall hurriedly give way to her if I got it wrong—that 600,000 people would be saved from dying if we got rid of passive smoking.