Health Bill [HL]

I, too, support the amendments. This seems to be a therapeutic part of the evening where we are all letting out our personal experiences. At the age of 17 I tried really hard to smoke. I bought a wonderful holder that was black, sort of ebony, with a silver ring around it. I thought I looked so elegant; I wanted to be like Audrey Hepburn. Sadly, though, there was no way. I could not smoke; I never got to like it. With regard to the amendments, it is a good idea to have a strategy. Governments are keen on strategies, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, is right that we have the strategies but the implementation is difficult. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that one of the things the Government have tried to do is to get GPs involved. They have smoking cessation clinics, and their pay and QOF points are related to it. Pharmacists are now getting into smoking cessation clinics as well. Real attempts have been made. My other point is about smuggling. In 2006-07 Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs estimated that between 9 per cent and 17 per cent of cigarettes—that is a large gap, but I suppose it is hard to define—and between 48 per cent and 59 per cent of hand-rolling tobacco were smuggled. As a result, the Government lost revenue of between £2.8 billion and £4.1 billion. That is something that they should be tackling; we cannot afford, especially at this time when we are in such dire straits financially, to lose those sorts of sums of money. What action are the Government taking to try to stop the smuggling?