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Children and Families Bill

No, that is true. I know that the noble Lord is very exercised by these issues, and I respect his point of view. A baby of itself could not move to another room. However—we have these arguments in many ways—the fact that we cannot remove the harm to all children in all situations presented by passive smoking is not an argument in itself for not taking the action that we could take to reduce the harm to the majority of children in the most dangerous situations. That is the argument in support of this amendment.

The third argument we heard was about enforcement. Again, we had some helpful contributions which I was going to make myself, but I shall just mention them. This is primarily not about enforcement, and we have precedence here with the ban on using mobile phones in cars, the mandatory use of seat belts and the ban on smoking in public places. All of those were hotly contested before legislation came in. I particularly remember the ban on smoking in public places because I was involved in it. That measure not only established smoke-free common areas for people but, equally importantly—and it is true of the other two measures—precipitated the biggest reduction in smoking we have seen: a significant and beneficial change in behaviour on a massive scale. That is the issue here, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, pointed out. I have no doubt that this would precipitate a very significant change in behaviour in relation to smoking in cars with children. Particularly when we see so much public support for the measure, I think that we could anticipate that.

I say again that Amendment 57BB is enabling. It would entail further discussion about the practicalities and the detail of the regulation. We fully accept the

need for that and welcome it. However, it is an important measure for children and I hope that the House will support it.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
751 cc1248-9 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
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