Health Bill

This has been a revealing last wicket stand, if I can put it that way in the context of Lords. We have smoked out that the Government want to ban the purchase of smoking materials below the age of 21. That is news to the whole nation and will probably cause considerable interest outside. We were also told that there will be consultation on this. I do not know what world the Minister lives in, but he ought to be aware, in terms of the ““joined-up government”” in which the Prime Minister believes, that the Government are consulting on dropping the voting age to 16 and that there are men and women aged 16 and slightly over out in Iraq and possibly in Afghanistan, yet they are to be banned from purchasing smoking requisites. Society is saying—and I think that it is right—that young people today have a great deal more experience of life than we did at the same age and that they take responsibility for their lives much earlier. That is why the Government are understandably thinking of whether the voting age should be dropped to 16. Indeed, I have a feeling that under the proposals one can be Prime Minister at 18, though I cannot swear to that as I cannot immediately recollect. I do not see any point in consulting on the age because it is quite clear that ASH and other groups will immediately want it. The Government need to recognise what is happening to society. Are 16 year-olds responsible people in our society or not? If they are, we should trust them. Quite frankly, one is not going to stop them smoking, even if they cannot buy tobacco. We had better face reality. I am sorry that the Minister has let the cat out of the bag today that the ban is supposed to be until age 21. Perhaps I am not sorry, but we—and the whole of society—will have to treat seriously the idea of banning the purchase of cigarettes by anybody under the age of 21.