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 Baroness Barker Baroness Barker Spokesperson in the Lords, Health 4:15, 19 June 2006

My Lords, I rise to sum up on behalf of our Front Bench on this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Walton, presented me with a problem because I wish to start by putting on record my genuine and long-held admiration for my noble friend Lord Russell-Johnston. In the past 25 years, he is one of the people whose speeches I have followed with great care; they were always of great interest to me when he was expanding on liberalism and the need for liberals to stand up for unpopular subjects. I am sorry to be the person on the Front Bench with whom he disagrees.

The noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour, asked about the Liberal view, and rightly cited the actions of my colleagues in the Scottish Executive. The liberal view was best put by John Stuart Mill in chapter three of On Liberty, when he said:

"Acts of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavourable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people".

As the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, made clear, the evidence on passive smoking is becoming clearer all the time. I accept that some of the criticism of the Economic Affairs Committee has perhaps been overstated, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, said, it is becoming increasingly evident from research that passive smoking has a harmful effect. I do not wish to go back over the arguments on ventilation because they have been adequately explained by others this afternoon, but I shall return to the question of choice.

In our social life people are now becoming not only used to not smoking in public spaces, but are increasingly expectant that public spaces will be non-smoking. As the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, graphically showed, there are some people for whom there is no choice but to enter a public place to partake of an enjoyable social life with other people. There is always the choice for somebody who wishes to smoke to go outside, and increasingly they do so. Two weeks ago I was in Ireland where an unambiguous complete ban has been implemented. It is fair to say that it has been successful mostly because of its simplicity and clarity. Has it done irreparable harm to the social life of the Irish people? Absolutely not. There is no evidence of that whatever. In fact, it has possibly made it better. Pubs are now convivial places to which people go to enjoy extremely good food, and to which they can take children. The smoking ban has changed the nature of half of them.

There is a danger in my noble friend's amendment, in that it allows the potential to use the provision of food as a means of getting round the regulations. It thereby sets up and causes health inequalities which now exist, but may well be exaggerated if we have a loophole in the future over whether or not somewhere provides food and, if it does, what its means are.

To those who have talked about public opinion and, in particular, the nanny state, I say that it is increasingly evident that the private sector is well ahead of us on this. More and more coffee shops and restaurant chains are seeking to change their ways, way ahead of any legislation. Today's vote—as my colleagues will hope—to keep the Bill as it is will not be detrimental to choice or the economy. It will, however, make an important difference to addressing health inequalities. That is a fundamental role of the state.