Results 1-4 of 4 for smoking speaker:Mark Harper

[Janet Anderson in the Chair] (4 Nov 2008)

Mark Harper: ...from me, so I am grateful for the opportunity to mention that I, too, have spent time with my fire and rescue service officers—the retained officers in Cinderford. I have gone into smoke-filled buildings with them and have been incredibly impressed by their dedication. If this project is so good and compelling, why is it that the men and women whom we ask to risk their lives and go...

Prayers: Voting Age (Reduction) Bill (6 Jun 2008) has video

Mark Harper: ...join the armed forces, leave school and pay taxes. He also mentioned cigarette manufacturing and addictive habits. He said that the manufacturers believed that if they could get people to take up smoking at 16, those people would be addicted for many years. The hon. Lady seems to be advancing a similar argument, in saying that if we can get people hooked on voting at 16, they will carry on...

Prayers: Voting Age (Reduction) Bill (6 Jun 2008) has video

Mark Harper: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Voting is indeed a very good habit, and smoking is a very bad one. The point that I was making was that if the Government—and, I suspect, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North—do not believe that a 16-year-old is capable of deciding whether to purchase a packet of cigarettes, I do not see how they can simultaneously believe that such a person...

Representation of the People (Reduction of Voting Age) (29 Nov 2005)

Mark Harper: It is worrying that the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams) drew a parallel between smoking and voting. If the Labour party gets its hands on it, it will be banning voting just as it wants to ban smoking. The Electoral Commission is investigating national voting at 16 at great length. Its report, which was published in April this year, concluded that the minimum age for all...