Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:00 pm on 19 June 2006.
My Lords, it is interesting that a prison is seen as being akin to somebody's home. It is quite extraordinary. It is also akin to somebody's place of work. However, I will let the Minister argue his way out of his own convoluted legislation. As a non-smoker myself—I have always been a non-smoker—it is a great pity that the medical profession and the Government have not been more assiduous in bringing forward information that would help us to make our minds up about these things.
I mentioned in Grand Committee that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and I, having shared the same profession years ago, sat on the flight decks of civil aeroplanes for many long hours over many years, almost always in the company of smokers. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is a smoker but I, as a non-smoker, certainly had to put up with an awful lot of smoke—and so did all of my colleagues. All our medical records are held by the Civil Aviation Authority, which has watched our health through all our years. It would not be difficult to follow us up since we retired. It would be simplicity itself to look at those statistics and establish the facts with that perfect control group. Wonderful!
When I wrote to the Chief Medical Officer to suggest that he might do that, he said that he did not think it would be helpful. When one offers such information in that way and is told that it is unhelpful, the question in my mind is, "Unhelpful to whom, or to what?" Is it unhelpful to rational debate, or to the irrational debate that the Government have produced to justify large parts of this Bill?