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Health Bill

My Lords, I take the opportunity afforded by this amendment—which I support because I think it is sensible—to make one short, final intervention in this debate, which has gone on for a long time. A number of colleagues—notably the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, across the Floor on the Labour Benches, to which we know he always shows great loyalty; the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, who has just spoken from the Conservative Benches; and myself from the Liberal Back Benches, my Front Bench having given the Government unequivocal support—have consistently opposed the part of the Bill dealing with smoking, which I regard as draconian and repressive legislation quite unnecessarily and unjustifiably restricting freedom of choice. None of us—including the noble Lords, Lord Naseby and Lord Monson—has denied that smokers, despite the pleasure that they derive from the habit, of which there has been little mention in the debate, face a risk of cancer. That is a fact that we accept. None of us has denied the right of non-smokers to enjoy smoke-free conditions in their workplace, in public places and on public transport—although bus shelters, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said, may be slightly different. But I think that all of us continue to believe that the extent of damage to health from so-called passive smoking, difficult as it is to quantify and evaluate, is, in the terms of the Scottish legal verdict, non-proven. Nevertheless, our amendments have accepted that which we doubted, in the interests of seeking a fair and balanced solution. Separation, we have argued, provided both protection and choice. This has been uncompromisingly rejected with uncompromising zealotry—though the Minister is not really a typical zealot; it’s a bit out of character. But it is the same logic: the same logic that led to alcoholic prohibition in the United States and that led to the burning of shops which sold alcohol in Beirut. It is an intolerant logic and it is wrong. I know that the majority are against me and that those on my own Front Bench consider me politically incorrect and misguided. I do not care. I care about freedom.