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Health Bill

Colleagues will recall that there was some mystery about the letter that was allegedly sent to me last Thursday, of which I did not receive a copy until I was given a photocopy, thanks to the Government Whip, halfway through our proceedings. Colleagues will know that it is impossible for anyone to read a long letter of several pages and make observations on it during our proceedings. However, the Minister will be relieved to know that, having studied the letter, I shall not go through it in great detail. One is tempted to, but that would not be a sensible use of the Committee’s time. I want to put on the record my view that the science attached to passive smoking is distinctly dodgy—I use that word advisedly. Furthermore, it is incredible that a department of state cannot find the minutes of the meetings of SCOTH on 15 October 1996 and 17 April 1997. One cannot have much confidence in the competence of the Department of Health, given that it cannot find the minutes of some of the meetings that have taken place. One wonders what on earth was discussed at those meetings—not that I have a suspicious mind, but one has been in politics for many years and one wonders why it always the interesting papers or minutes that go missing. I say that in passing. However, noble Lords may have read an article in the Sunday Times by Sarah-Kate Templeton, its medical correspondent. That article has led me to use the word ““dodgy””. I remind Members of the Committee, who probably know already, that I am married to a retired general practitioner, so I know a little about the world of medicine. Under the headline, ““Mothers got wrong advice for 40 years””, the article said:"““Breast-feeding mothers have been given potentially harmful advice on infant nutrition for the past 40 years, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has admitted . . . Charts used in Britain for decades to advise mothers on a baby’s optimum size have been based on the growth rate of infants fed on formula milk . . . The organisation””—" the WHO—"““now says the advice given to millions of breast-feeding mothers was distorted because babies fed on formula milk put on weight far faster . . . These breast-feeding mothers were wrongly told that their babies were underweight and were advised, or felt pressured, to fatten them up by giving them formula milk or extra solids””." If the WHO can give the wrong advice for 40 years about something so important, which affects babies throughout the world, Members of the Committee will understand why some of us have a degree of scepticism about some of the science to do with passive smoking. I am most grateful to the Minister for the tables that he has produced, but some of these data are pretty old. Evidence from 1990 is not exactly up to date. I am sorry to be sceptical, but that is a classic example of why we in this House must continue to question science. If it is clearly proven, as it is now for smokers, then one can readily accept it, but when it is not clearly proven, then we are right to continue questioning. I am grateful to the Minister for answering the question that I asked on Second Reading about the estimated cost. That is carefully defined in the letter, and varies from between £4.5 million and £13.3 million. I am not quite sure why there is such a variation—perhaps the Minister can tell us. If it had been £4.5 million to £5.5 million that would seem reasonable, but I am not sure why the cost should vary between £4.5 million and three times that amount. Since our debate on Thursday, we now know that the NHS had its most successful year last year. Hundreds of nurses have been made redundant, thousands of workers have been fired and losses of more than £750 million have been declared. That figure is probably £1 billion, because you can bet your bottom dollar that every conceivable loss that can be kept out of the loss section has been removed. But none of those costs—between £4.5 million and £13.3 million—takes any account of the cost for the adaptation of licensed premises. If those changes are not made, custom will undoubtedly be lost. On Thursday, I asked the Minister about Scandinavia. Since he has been kind enough to give us these research data, I should have hoped that on Friday somebody would have checked the files on Scandinavia or made some phone calls to Scandinavia to establish what the situation is there. I do not have a great office back-up with which to do this, but I have made contact with a restaurateur in the middle of Oslo in Norway and I asked him about the impact of the smoking ban there. His view was that general bar takings are down 10 per cent to 15 per cent and that some barmen have been made redundant. He said that the media have a lot of issues about the barmen being fired because the unions are up in arms about it, and the public are complaining about the noise associated with the people outside the licensed premises. There are even suggestions in Norway of having different hours for drinking if you are inside the licensed premises or outside the licensed premises. This is an example of what is happening. Admittedly, it is just one sample, but as the person I spoke to is a leading restaurateur, I think that it is in general terms true. It just seems to me on Clause 2 stand part that the Government should recognise that they must make reasonable provision for smokers. That is the key issue. If the Minister were to say, ““Yes, we recognise that we must do that””, much of our difficulty with the Bill would melt away. If the Government do not, I fear that the problems will continue.