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Health Bill

My Lords, I support this amendment. I wish that I could persuade your Lordships, even your medical Lordships, to think about risk in a statistical manner. I know that this is a very boring subject which has nothing to do with manifesto commitments, but it is the essence of the rationale of the Bill. I accept that there is a risk from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. The question is how big the risk is. Let me go very briefly through just one argument. It is generally estimated that the risk of lung cancer among the general population is 1 per 10,000, which is 0.001 per cent. It has been argued that the risk among non-smokers exposed to environmental tobacco smoke goes up by 25 per cent. When that is bandied around, it sounds like a large number and looks like a significant increase. It is a significant increase in the risk, but from a very low base: a 25 per cent increase on 1 in 10,000, or 0.0025 per cent. If I now take the Minister’s argument, accept that ventilation systems are not perfectly effective and assume that they are only 50 per cent effective, the risk of getting lung cancer from ETS falls to 0.00125 per cent. Let us look at it in millions, which may be a bit easier to understand. The risk of getting lung cancer among the general population is 100 per 1,000,000. A 25 per cent increase in the risk brings it up to 125 per 1,000,000. A 50 per cent reduction in the risk because of improved ventilation brings it down to 112.5 per 1,000,000, and that is the risk of getting lung cancer, not dying from it. This is ordinary, simple statistical thinking. However, the main point is that, given that the risk of lung cancer among the general population is so low, the increased risk is statistically insignificant. Technically, it falls within the margin of statistical error; that is, it is too low to register on the statistical radar screen. Now, on the basis of a statistically insignificant risk, people are to be forbidden by the state to set up genuine membership clubs that allow members to smoke. Even on the wildly unrealistic assumption made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that membership clubs that allow smoking will be staffed entirely by non-smokers, the risk to non-smoking staff is so minute as not to be worth thinking about, at least by the Government. I accept that the avoidance of premature death is of high moral significance, but it should not necessarily be the object of public legislation. That is going over the top, which is why I support the amendment wholeheartedly.