Results 1-20 of 66 for smoking speaker:George Young

Bill Presented: Health Bill [ Lords] (8 Jun 2009) has video

George Young: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), who is chairman of the all-party group on smoking and health, in which I am a humble spear carrier. Where he leads, I follow. I want to return in a moment to the points that he made about tobacco. May I pick up on a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs. Miller) made about clause 34,...

Oral Answers to Questions — Health: Smoking (16 Dec 2008) has video

George Young: I also welcome the steps taken by the Government further to reduce the damage done by smoking-related diseases, but will the Secretary of State reflect on his decision not to make progress with one proposition that achieved 98 per cent. support in the consultation exercise—namely, the proposition that tobacco products should be sold in plain packaging? That seems to have been parked for...

Orders of the Day: Political Parties and Elections Bill (20 Oct 2008) has video

George Young: ...to the debate will have found the counter-arguments, put first by my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude), very powerful. He holed clause 10 below the waterline. Before the smoke had settled, there came another torpedo from the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth), headed the same way. I shall be amazed if clause 10 survives its passage through both Houses in the...

Macular Degeneration (17 Apr 2007)

George Young: ...option was for him to ask her GP to apply for treatment in another area. That does not strike me as a good advertisement for a national health service. What should the Minister do? Only a tiny minority of people know that smoking causes blindness as well as lung cancer and heart disease. More teenagers said that they would quit smoking if they had early signs of blindness compared with...

Public Bill Committee: Finance (No.2) Bill: Clause 2 (9 May 2006)

George Young: ...,Mr. O’Hara, and to return to the Standing Committee on the Finance Bill after a gap of some 10 years. I welcome any measure that deals with smuggling and indeed any that deals with smoking. I happen to be opposed to both. I listened carefully to the Minister, but did not hear any estimate of the impact of clause 2 on the substantial evasion of revenue listed in the background...

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

George Young: .... At some point, the Government will have to address that issue, because it is going to recur time and again. I hope that, at the end of this debate, Parliament will send out the clear signal that smoking is a harmful activity that it wishes to discourage. My concern, however, is that we are about to remove one indefensible distinction, namely, the distinction between pubs that serve food...

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

George Young: Indeed. It is perfectly consistent to be a member of the Conservative party and to take public health seriously by voting for a smoking ban in public places. Of course people should have the freedom to smoke, but that freedom needs to be balanced by the freedom of other people to enjoy clean, fresh air. When the Divisions are called, I shall, without any hesitation at all, vote with the right...

Business of the House (12 Jan 2006)

George Young: Before the Christmas recess, I asked the Leader of the House to use his influence to secure for Labour Members a free vote on smoking. I am grateful to him for his success. Can he tell us when the debate will take place? Can he think of other items in the Government's legislative programme that have caused equal distress and can he think of any reason why the convenient solution of a free...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: New Clause 2 - Age of sale (15 Dec 2005)

George Young: ...and what is in the Bill is in the Bill. The Prime Minister did not say in his response to the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) that there was no question of considering changing the ban on smoking in pubs that do not sell food, but that he is now going to listen to the debate. I welcome the flexibility that the hon. Lady has just displayed. I understand that that would be a change in...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: New Clause 2 - Age of sale (13 Dec 2005)

George Young: ...to emerge from the Government. I said on Second Reading that what the tobacco industry fears is not so much price increases and health warnings, useful though they are, but statements from society that smoking is an unacceptable habit in a public place and that tobacco is a product that it is illegal to sell and consume in certain circumstances. Those are more effective steps to the...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 9 - Offence of failing to prevent smoking in smoke-free place (13 Dec 2005)

George Young: I shall develop my hon. Friend’s point in relation to subsection (3), which makes it clear that the person whose job it is to ensure that a place is smoke-free can, in certain circumstances, commit an offence. My concern is not with the people right at the bottom of the management chain, but with those right at the top. For the sake of argument, let us take the Palace of Westminster....

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: 4.5 pm (13 Dec 2005)

George Young: The Minister is making a good case for clause 6, as it is at the point of inception of a new regime and the creation of the criminal offence of smoking in a public place. I am minded to be persuaded by her argument. My concern is that if, in a few years’ time, we have successfully changed the climate and non-smoking becomes the norm, we will need primary legislation to remove clause 6....

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 7 - Offence of smoking in smoke-free place (13 Dec 2005)

George Young: It is a pleasure to be of service to the Liberal Democrats to ensure that there is a debate on clause stand part. Clause 7 introduces the offence of smoking in a smoke-free place. I welcome that. The Minister said in an earlier debate that she did not envisage a raft of prosecutions. I hope that she is right. I hope that this will be self-enforcing. But it would be helpful if she could tell...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 6 - No-smoking signs (13 Dec 2005)

George Young: I think that this is the appropriate point at which to ask a general question about the clause, which creates a duty to display no-smoking signs. The clause makes sense in the narrow context of the Bill, but a rather awkward issue arises if one stands back and puts the Bill into perspective. The Bill is a stage on a journey, at the beginning of which smoking was the majority activity and was...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 4 - Additional smoke-free places (8 Dec 2005)

George Young: My hon. Friend’s amendment would qualify subsection (3), which gives the appropriate authorities powers to designate additional smoke-free places, by inserting the words “significant amounts of”. Earlier this morning, in the context of the debate on children, the Minister said that under the Bill a whole range of public places that children frequented would be smoke-free....

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 3 - Exemptions (8 Dec 2005)

George Young: ...Minister’s boss. On the amendments, I accept what the Minister says about the premises that are not exempt. For those who work in those premises, life will improve because there will be no smoking. However, the amendments focus on those who are in premises that are exempt where, as we have discovered from earlier debates, the position will get worse because the smoking drinker will...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 3 - Exemptions (8 Dec 2005)

George Young: ...hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) has a legal qualification, which I am spared. Amendment No. 60 requires the Government to set a maximum permitted occupational exposure limit on second-hand smoke in exempted premises. In effect, the amendment is saying that the health and safety risk is unavoidable, so the amendment is a fallback position; however, it would require the Government to...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 3 - Exemptions (8 Dec 2005)

George Young: Lady Winterton, I, too, welcome you to the Committee as co-pilot on a flight where smoking is permitted as long as no one is eating at the time. This group of amendments deals with the interface between the Bill and legislation that protects people where they work. I remind Labour Members that the relevant section of their manifesto contained a commitment to protect employees. The Minister...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 3 - Exemptions (6 Dec 2005)

George Young: ...could exempt any other categories of workplace or enclosed public place that the Government choose, whether or not they are listed in clause 2. In other words, the Bill is consistent with ending smoking in any, all or no groups of workplaces. It follows that it is not absolutely clear what will be the consequence of, for example, accepting amendment No. 55. Let us say for the sake of...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 3 - Exemptions (6 Dec 2005)

George Young: ...paragraphs (b) and (c), subject to the qualification that I made a moment ago. I shall not repeat the arguments that have been advanced for including premises that do not sell food in the ban on smoking. There is a strong argument for legislation that is simple, clear and easily understood, and for legislation that is easy to enforce. I am concerned about the health inequalities that will...