Health Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:15 pm on 19 June 2006.

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Photo of Lord Rea Lord Rea Labour 4:15, 19 June 2006

My Lords, I had not intended to speak, because of my voice. However, I disobeyed medical orders—my own—to speak in this debate, because it is such an important topic. I also had not expected that on the very first amendment we would be talking about the Economic Affairs Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. Since, however, a discussion on that committee has occupied a certain amount of time in this debate—it is not a short debate but a quite long debate—it might be worth pointing out to your Lordships that of the 13 members of that committee, two were former Chancellors of the Exchequer, two professors of economics, and six, possibly seven, had links to commerce and industry. Not one member, however, had any professional experience in medicine, nursing or public health.

Furthermore, the committee appears to have overlooked evidence that demonstrates the harmful effects of passive tobacco smoke. I want briefly to mention one or two people who gave evidence. The first is Caroline Flint, who was then the Minister for public health. In relation to exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, she quoted the study which found that in adults lung cancer is up 24 per cent, an increased risk of heart disease is up 25 per cent, and that the risk of heart disease increases substantially even at low levels of exposure to second-hand smoke. Perhaps more significantly—much has been made of this, albeit statistical, evidence, and two of the expert advisers to the committee were statisticians—the committee heard evidence from Sir Richard Peto, one of the most eminent epidemiological statisticians in the whole country. He said that, if there was proportionality, you would expect to get up to a 20 per cent excess from inhaled environmental tobacco smoke. He said that that was what you saw in the average of all studies. So I think that the composition of the committee, and perhaps the views of the chairman, eminent though they all are and excellently written though the report is, may be slightly biased.