Health Bill

There were 57,000 responses to the consultation last year. I am afraid I do not have all of them in my head—I am sorry for the terrible dereliction of duty—but I understand that they included FOREST. I am not sure that a £50 fine for smokers puts them in the category of the worst criminals. Something must be going seriously wrong with the rest of the criminal justice system if that is where we are. I tried to explain before—and will repeat because I am not sure that it has got across to all Members of the Committee—that the fines are up to a maximum. It does not follow that the court actually applies the maximum in all cases. Indeed, throughout the criminal justice system, we will find, week in, week out, that when people are fined the courts do not impose the maximum fine. The £2,500 is the maximum for a level 4 offence. That is not to say that everybody who commits such an offence will be fined £2,500. I set out the various levels at great length, and the way in which particular offences fitted into them. I have an interesting table before me, setting out the offences and proposed fines in England, and the position in Scotland; looking down it, they seem remarkably similar. I will send it to all Members of the Committee, so that they can peruse it before our next sitting. It is common practice across government to consult the Home Office on fine levels. That is what governments do: they go to the department with policy responsibility in this area. In consulting the Home Office, the Department of Health has done no different from any other government department on this.