Health Bill

The Minister will have detected the sense of the Committee. I was astonished by his answer because I was fully expecting to be reassured about the Government’s intentions and for him to say that it would be legally impossible for the age of sale to be raised above 18, for reasons that are not immediately apparent when reading the Bill. But he did not say that at all, and I am disturbed by the possibility that the Government might entertain an increase in the age of sale above 18. Although I am not a smoker and I do not enjoy the smell of tobacco smoke, this raises serious civil liberties implications and should be the subject of a widespread public debate during the weeks that follow. I suspect that there is nothing more that we can say at this point, but I assure the Minister that we will wish to return to this matter at a later stage of the Bill.