Tobacco Advertising and Promotion (Display and Specialist Tobacconists) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend and applaud the fact that she has brought this Motion before the House. People have spoken with great emotion about the rights of individuals. There is no proposal before us to ban people from smoking—perhaps there should be. It concerns me that we always dance round the brutal, central point about smoking: that it is known beyond doubt to be a killer. We are condoning a delay in discouraging young people and others from indulging in a habit that kills. It is not just the smokers themselves but their families, the grief, the cost to future production as people fall ill and the heavy cost on the health service when we already know that the health service is stretched almost beyond all reason. In the arguments of those who are against my noble friend, I find it difficult that they seem to suggest that this is a private matter for the individual. It is not: it has social implications and the cost falls upon society as a whole. It is not just a cost upon the individual who decides to smoke. What evaluations have been made of the cost of this delay? What will be the cost to the health service? How many people will die prematurely who would not otherwise have died? What will the cost be of supporting families where people have died prematurely because of indulging the habit? This is an absolutely inexcusable delay. In the last 24 hours, we again heard the Prime Minister make great speeches about how he will not brook delay in his decision to decentralise and make sure that people share in responsibility and participate in the kind of society of which he dreams. If he will not brook delay in that circumstance, why does he do so in allowing a practice to go on of encouraging people to take up a habit that is dangerous and results in death? We must face these central facts. If we condone what the Government propose, we condone more death, suffering, cost to the general public and burdens upon the health service. How on earth can that be justified?