Health Bill [HL]

We can debate this issue some other time. All that I was going to say was that my noble friend—he was then my noble friend—was always extremely sensitive and never once inflicted in any unacceptable way his smoking habits on those of us who shared a room with him. There is a lot of sensitivity on all sides. Very often there is a flaw in our approach to legislation. We embark on legislation, we pass it, but we do not actually give enough attention to evaluating by how far it has achieved its purpose. What I like about this amendment is that it is saying that we really should have a strategy for evaluating whether these particular steps that we are taking are actually achieving their purpose. I wish we did that more often. It is terribly important. I must declare an interest from my self-education; one of my daughters was pioneering some years back a combined local authority and National Health Service project on persuading pregnant women and young mothers not to smoke. I was startled by two things that she said, because she was totally committed to the cause. She said: "You know, you do have to reflect on the realities with which I am sometimes faced. The first is that I work partly with young mothers, pregnant women, midwives, hospitals, training courses and the rest, but one of my biggest difficulties is working with general practitioners, many of whom do not take this issue as seriously as they should". If we are serious about achieving results on smoking, there is an issue that needs to be part of a comprehensive strategy. What made an even greater impression on me was when she said, "I have to face it that for some of these single mothers on limited means, living one hell of a life, their fag is the only enjoyment they really get in life—the only break they get". This did not put her off her course, but she was suggesting that if we are going to make progress we have to look at the social context in which we are operating and at all the factors that have a bearing on the situation. What I like about the amendment is that it introduces that concept by saying, "Yes, we should make it more difficult to smoke; yes, there are all sort of ways that we can curb the easy availability of tobacco, which is, of course, a bad thing—but at the same time we really need to look (a) at whether we are achieving results, of course, but (b) at whether we are taking fully into account all the factors that we should be". I commend those who drafted the amendments, and I hope that the Government will take them seriously.