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Health Bill

My Lords, I shall be very brief. I got asthma 12 years ago. We have heard numerous noble Lords talking about passive smoking and about how it can be harmful in certain ways but not always necessarily so. I am the only person here who can give practical examples of what happens to a person in my position. If I am in a car on a motorway travelling at 70 miles an hour with the windows closed and the ventilation turned off and a car overtakes me, and I can see not only that it is exceeding the speed limit but that the driver is smoking a cigar, I will have an asthma attack. I will have to take Ventolin as well as numerous other things. If my windows are open, it is likely that I will have to stop and that the paramedics will have to come very quickly indeed as I will be very ill. The noble Lord, Lord Palmer, who is sitting in his place, has known this in the past when he used to smoke cigars. Passive smoking is a killer. It can kill. It could kill me. I am led to believe that one in five children nowadays has to use an inhaler because of asthma and passive smoking. We are also ignoring them today, as it is the quality of their lives as well as ours. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Russell-Johnston, refers to definitely separated areas. What happens when the doors open? My definition of a smoking area and a non-smoking area has always been that the non-smoking area is a place where smoke is present but smokers are not.