Health Bill [HL]

Whenever I am able to escape from your Lordships’ House, I thoroughly enjoy playing a game of golf. I know four golf clubs in north Northumberland where there are vending machines in the clubhouse, freely accessible to the children who come and play golf. There is no way any control could be exercised on the purchase of cigarettes from those machines because there is no way that the steward of the club could possibly be able to see all the time what was happening at the machines. The clubs sell cigarettes even though it is no longer possible to smoke within the clubhouse because of the recent legislation, and I have seen many children purchasing cigarettes from those machines. Although I put my name to Amendment 92, I believe that the only solution to this problem is the total ban of the sale of tobacco products from vending machines. That is something to which I would give my warmest possible support.