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Health Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, was just a little ahead of himself in the context of the amendments and was really rather pointing towards a later amendment about smoking in clubs. That will come later in the evening. I certainly look forward to it, because I look forward to the noble Lord telling noble Lords on this side of the House that we ought to vote against the Labour manifesto. This is a nice occasion. Having been told so frequently recently that it is very wicked to vote against the Labour Party’s manifesto, tonight we will be told that it is very good to vote against it. I will save that touch of enjoyment for later. I certainly enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Walton, who spoke of the curious way in which lawyers insult those with whom they disagree. He then went on, in his own way, to say that it was inconceivable that the committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham could have reached the conclusions that it did. It is not only conceivable; it is a fact that it reached those conclusions. I worry when medical experts use the English language in such a sloppy manner as to say that something is inconceivable, when it has not only been conceived, but done. Of course, doctors are, we all agree, extremely useful technicians, but they are not always right. If I were a statistician, I could observe that 100 per cent of patients who go to doctors die. This is statistical fact. I am surprised that on this Bill somebody has not by now ridden away with statistics of that degree of idiocy. The medical consensus of today is sometimes the medical heresy of tomorrow—and, very frequently, vice versa. What worries me in all this is the attitude of the Government. We have not heard what the Minister is going to say today, but some of us who were in Grand Committee have heard a bit of it. If I am right—I am sure the Minister will indicate immediately if I am wrong—this Bill does not apply to prisons. Despite everything that has been said by supporters of the Bill and supporters of the Government about the monstrous injustice of condemning people to work in dangerous conditions, warders, who are government servants, will be required to work in public places. Is a prison a public place? It is a bit hard to distinguish just how public it is these days, as people come and go.