Clause 3 - Exemptions

Part of Health Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:00 pm on 6 December 2005.

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Photo of George Young George Young Chair, Standards and Privileges Committee, Chair, Standards and Privileges Committee 5:00, 6 December 2005

This has been a good-humoured and helpful debate. I accept, as the Minister says, that amendment No. 57 is a bit of a blunderbuss, which knocks out all the exemptions and then has to put some of them back in. In dismissing my argument, however, the Minister has raised my hopes that she will not be able to deploy the same defence when we   reach amendment No. 55, which is targeted specifically at licensed premises.

It was helpful to have on the record a commitment to have a three-year review, although that is not, of course, in the Bill. Will the Minister confirm that it is a matter of time before we have a total ban and that that is not subject to the outcome of the review? There is a potential inconsistency in saying on the one hand that a total ban is a matter of time—the Secretary of State said that it could all be over by 2010—and on the other hand that we will have a review after three years to look at the issue, because the outcome of that review might be that the Government do not want a total ban. It would be helpful if we could be told—not necessarily in this debate, but on the next group of amendments—whether this is a one-way street and it is simply a matter of time, or whether the issue is subject to an open-ended review that might come up with a different result.

I do not entirely accept the arguments about public opinion. A higher percentage of people smoke in Scotland than in England, but Scotland is going ahead at a faster pace than England, so I do not quite understand the ingenious argument that the hon. Member for Falkirk deployed regarding public opinion. Nobody has explained why England is on a slower track than other parts of the United Kingdom on this important public health measure. Having said that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.