My Lords, I seem to recall that you described this as a health fascist Bill, but we shall let Hansard speak for itself.
We could spend a long time debating the figures. I think that the figures are in the public arena. I shall not go over them again. Noble Lords can interrupt me as much as they like, but I shall not go over the figures again. We spent a lot of time on that issue. The information is in the public arena. If people have a thirst for knowledge they can read the documents. They are well set out in the public arena.
I wish to clarify any confusion over what I said at the end of my opening speech—I do not think that I confused people—about 600,000 lives. I did not say that 600,000 lives were saved. I apologise if I confused people. What I said was what was in the regulatory impact assessment: smoke-free provisions will lead to 600,000 smokers giving up, not lives saved. That is a 1.7 per cent reduction in prevalence. What that suggests—as I also said—is that many lives will be saved in the long term.
With regard to some of the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and others, this is not a debate about statistics, about how many people died and to what extent their lives were truncated. I ask the noble Lord and others who shared his views to think about how many people will also have the quality of their life affected as they have their life shortened. Many people are in the position of my noble friend Lord Simon. They may have conditions that are adversely affected. There is a quality of life issue and deteriorating health for many people who are afflicted and have to subject themselves to the experience of second-hand smoke.
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is concerned about the SCOTH report and whether information is being withheld from the public. SCOTH has reported twice in the past eight years, in 1998 and 2004. Both reports have been published. They are in the Library. Their case has been set out. People can read it. They can consider whether they accept or reject it. In addition, the World Health Organisation reported in 2002 classifying second-hand smoke as a known carcinogen.
Health Bill
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Warner
(Labour)
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 1 March 2006.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Health Bill.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
679 c336-7
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2024-04-21 21:10:57 +0100
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