Clause 4 - Additional smoke-free places
Health Bill
10:35 am
Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Health; Westbury, Conservative)
I will not detain the Committee, other than to recap and make some final remarks on the clause.
I must say that I have been a bit disappointed by the Minister’s response so far, because this is an important clause that gives the Secretary of State extensive powers. We have explained throughout that we are a little worried about the powers given by regulation to the current Secretary of State and her successors.
The insertion of “significant amounts of” before the word “smoke” in subsection (3) would have been helpful because it would have made it clear that we were not talking about trivial exposure. I think we have probably done to death, so to speak, the concept of exposure to trivial amounts of smoke, and I have made my position clear. If we are talking about public health—as I certainly am—we need to discard what one might call nuisance or trivial exposure to tobacco smoke. The purpose of my amendment was to underscore public health and discard nuisance and amenity, which although important have no place in a Bill such as this—as I suspect most people in the country, being of a libertarian frame of mind, would agree. I am sorry that the Minister has not seen fit to entertain my reasonable suggestion.
The clause gives the Secretary of State considerable powers. I trust that the right hon. Lady and her successors will use those powers wisely, but we will certainly be keeping a close eye on the use of the authority given to them under the clause.