Health Bill

Before the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, replies, I thank the Minister for his response on Amendment No. 107 in particular. I want to reinforce what he had to say about the Irish experience. A number of Members of this Committee had the benefit of experiencing the Irish ban a few months after it came into effect, and the consequences were entirely as he said. Some smaller pubs found that they had a downturn in trade but, by and large, there was no significant economic effect in Ireland, and the position has now considerably improved on that. I take the point about the weather and so on, although I do not believe that 14 March is normally quite as harsh as the Minister was implying—except this year—but he made the point early in his remarks that it was easier to implement the current legislation because it was now simpler and there were fewer exceptions. Perhaps he will bear that in mind when considering the commencement date. The other point that I wish to make briefly as this is Committee stage is that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, is determined to challenge all ““bandying about”” of statistics. I prefer to talk about ““citing for the purposes of argument””, but then it all depends which side of the statistics you are on. An even more recent opinion poll asked a specific question on the provisions of this Bill before the other place voted on it. It found 70 per cent support. That was the BMRB International survey, using the BMRB Access Omnibus, of 831 adults aged 16-plus in England. I can give the noble Lord the citation; indeed, I can give him the citation for the previous figures. I did not jump up immediately, but I am responding to him now because I am sure that at some stage the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, will accuse me of not answering the question.