New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions

Part of Orders of the Day — Health Bill – in the House of Commons at 4:30 pm on 14 February 2006.

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Photo of Steve Pound Steve Pound PPS (Rt Hon Hazel Blears, Minister of State), Home Office 4:30, 14 February 2006

Hang on a second. I am just getting going. I am a little short of breath, and what little I have I try to make the most of.

Having listened to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, I consider it a miracle that any of us have survived, given his talk of an apocalyptic Armageddon of nicotine poisoning that is somehow threatening to decimate the nation.

Every morning I used to rise and have a reflective cigarette; then I would have breakfast and a cigarette; then I would say my prayers, but remember what my good Jesuit confessor said: "You should never ever smoke while you are praying, but you can pray while you are smoking." I would then get on a bus and leap like a lithe gazelle to the upper deck, where I would have a couple of Players Weights before jumping off. By the time I got to primary school, I could, as ashtray monitor, go to the staff room and pick up a few dog-ends.