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Health Bill

I support my noble friend. The provisions of the Bill as they are written, and would be amended by my noble friend’s amendment, bite particularly hard on ex-servicemen’s clubs. It sticks in my mind very clearly that last summer, when the committee of which I had the privilege to be chairman was raising the funds—to which Her Majesty’s Government did not contribute, I might add, although other governments did—for the building of the memorial to the Battle of Britain, which is on the Embankment now, just by Westminster pier, we had a meeting to show people the work that was being done at the foundry where the bronzes were being cast. We wanted to show that work, not least to some of the Battle of Britain pilots. There are not many left now—80 odd, I think, world-wide. We owe them something. After we had seen the work going on, we went down to the pub for a drink and a sandwich. The chairman of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association sat with his pint and his sandwich—and he lit his cigar. I said to him, ““Make the most of it. You won’t be able to do that for much longer””. He said, ““It’s not what they bloody told me in 1940””. We know that he will not be able to light his cigar in the pub, but it is absolutely scandalous and outrageous that we turn to men of that kind and say, ““You are not sufficiently grown up, in a private club of your own, among your friends, to smoke a cigar””. I think that stinks far more than the smoke from the tobacco.