Health Bill

It is more than 25 years since I last took part in the Committee stage of any Bill, certainly as a Back Bencher. If I give any advice to the Minister, I would say to him that by far the best way of getting through the business is to look happy and cheerful, because it will come to an end in the end, whereas the more miserable he looks, the longer it will take. I wish to support the amendments proposed by my noble friends, because I share their concerns. The longer the debate has gone on, the more it emphasises to me that the definition of what constitutes premises is not best done by regulation but should be in the Bill. I apologise that I was not able to speak at Second Reading. I am not going to make a Second Reading speech now, but it is right and proper that I should declare an interest in this matter. It is not the best interest in the world, but I am the convenor of the Lords and Commons Pipe and Cigar Smokers’ Club. I am not necessarily a good one, because my predecessor the noble Lord, Lord Mason, did the job for 18 years. He is a very much more distinguished pipe-smoker than I will ever be. I have never smoked cigarettes. I smoke probably one cigar per month, but from time to time I smoke my pipe on my boat. During these proceedings, I want to find out whether when I have my boat as my home, which I do for several weeks each year, the regulations will allow me to smoke. If I have a passenger on my boat, will I not be allowed to smoke? If I go 12 miles offshore, as I do from time to time, am I then outside the jurisdiction and so able to smoke? When I come back in again, will I not be able to smoke? These are important issues from my point of view, but I do not want to pursue them now. Part 1 is not about health; it is much more about human rights. That is why it is important that we should have this debate. I do not argue that smoking is anything other than bad for you, but it is still legal. If it is still legal, the rights of smokers and non-smokers must be dealt with in a proper manner. The original Bill from the Government seemed, from my lack of expertise, to be an attempt to reach a reasonable balance between the two positions. The only good thing about this is that I gather that there was a Cabinet discussion, which does not happen too often these days. Of course, it was leaked immediately afterwards, but there was a Cabinet discussion. A charming young lady who is a colleague of the Minister’s, Caroline Flint, came to the Select Committee that I chair to tell us that the Government had changed their mind because public opinion seemed to support them. The Minister and I have one other thing in common: we were both in our day, in different ways, great friends of the late Barbara Castle. For many years, I was Barbara Castle’s pair. I think that she would be horrified about our seeking to decide a matter on principle and then deciding to change it because various lobbies had got at us. She and I disagreed about many things, but she was a woman of strong principle and would have stuck to whatever she believed to be right. There is another way in which I disapprove of what is happening—I can be as critical of my own side as I can be of the Government, but the prime responsibility lies with the Government. When you are seeking to balance human rights, as we are in this case, the proposition that the Government should reach a view and then decide that there should be a free vote is simply unsustainable. The Government must know where they stand and say to their supporters: ““This is what we intend to do””. I was a Chief Whip in the Commons for many years and I believe that whipping—along with one other matter—is best dealt with in private, not in public.  No Member of Parliament on either side when I was in the Commons would ever have voted against his conscience, whether or not there was a three-line Whip. That was never the point. The Government set their policy and have a reasonable expectation that their supporters will support them. That is their job. So I do not approve of free votes on these matters. The Government have a responsibility to balance the rights of smokers and non-smokers in a proper way. I accept that that is difficult. The original Bill made some attempt to do that. This Bill seems to me to have abandoned all principle in an unacceptable way, so we have reached another impasse. As a matter of fact, as far as I can see, we are about to do the same thing on a bigger and more important issue by deciding to have negotiations about the future constitution of our country and then to have a free vote in both Houses on whether or not to proceed with it. That is simply a misunderstanding of the whole process of government, of which this is an example. I hope that the Minister can reassure me—the noble Lord, Lord Walton, tried and I listened with respect to what he had to say. My concern is that it is very unsatisfactory for the definitions to be in regulations. Therefore, I support my noble friend’s amendment.