I am coming in a minute to talk about consultation, which is one of the questions that my noble friend Lord Ribeiro asked, and I hope I can at least utter some words of comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, as regards his question.
I will focus for a moment on why the Government prefer to achieve behaviour change without recourse to imposing the law. We believe that our approach is making a distinct impact, both in terms of raising awareness and, more importantly, changing behaviour. There is a very simple point to be made here, which was made by my noble friend Lady Tyler. I cannot believe that any parent would want, knowingly, to expose their child or children to harm. I am convinced that smoking in family cars and the home is much more likely to be due to a simple lack of understanding among smokers about how damaging to health second-hand smoke can be. Our social marketing campaigns remind us that more than 80% of cigarette smoke is invisible. Our campaigns have used the strap-line:
“If you could see what’s really there you wouldn’t smoke”.
That is why we are focusing our efforts on raising awareness of the harm caused and on encouraging smokers to modify their smoking behaviour.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, referred to pregnant women and whether we would regulate to protect them. I understand of course how vulnerable the child is when still in the womb, and the noble Baroness rightly raised the issue of how harmful second-hand smoke can be, especially for people with respiratory conditions such as asthma.