Health Bill

The Minister has repeated that statistic, and I challenged it. I said that other polls, most recently by the Office for National Statistics, showed that whereas the majority were in favour of restricting smoking in public places, a majority did not favour a ban. Only 31 per cent favoured a ban; the majority favoured forms of restriction less than a total ban. Surely it does not advance the debate simply to repeat one set of figures when another set is available that challenges them. The Minister has to reach his own judgment about what reliability to place on these statistics.