Edward Leigh: ...colleagues, but we certainly have plenty of room in Lincolnshire. If people want to come up to Lincolnshire and build houses, they are very welcome. We will do our bit. I am very dubious about the smoking ban and, as a libertarian, will vote against it. It will not solve the problem, and I believe it will result in a massive increase in criminality. Every time we ban something, we simply...
Edward Leigh: ..., need more medical treatment, leave school and home while young, become sexually active or pregnant or become a parent at an early age, and report more depressive symptoms and higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during adolescence and adulthood. None of that is to gainsay the fantastic job done by tens of thousands of single parents, many of them single parents through...
Edward Leigh: ...; need more medical treatment; leave school and home when young; become sexually active, pregnant, or a parent at an early age; and report more depressive symptoms and higher levels of smoking, drinking and other drug use during adolescence and adulthood. Family breakdown is one of the key drivers in poverty for women. The scholar Allen Parkman has discovered that women living in American...
Edward Leigh: ...with the Liberals than with the likes of me. If that is true, it is no surprise if party membership is under stress. The contrary system to ours involves a host of smaller parties combining in smoke-filled rooms—although they are probably smokeless now—in order to make deals and hash out a coalition that may be contrary to voters’ wishes. That is often the continental system. Of...
Edward Leigh: ...mental well-being is estimated to be equal to that of an extra $100,000. A 10-year study of British households found that the health gain from marriage may be as much as the benefit from giving up smoking. The Centre for Social Justice found that those not growing up in a two-parent family were 75% more likely to fail at school, 70% more likely to become addicted to drugs and 50% more...
Edward Leigh: ...think what we could deliver with that amount. But how solid are any of the savings made? Our 48th report cast doubt on the reliability of nearly three quarters of the efficiency savings achieved. Smoke and mirrors are the last things that we need. Efficiency savings are nothing if they do not free up hard cash or improve delivery. We made a number of recommendations on the subject in our...
Edward Leigh: ...restricted the availability of tobacco products to smugglers. In this debate last year, I quipped that Imperial Tobacco was exporting enough cigarettes to some countries for every inhabitant to be smoking several hundred a day—thus illustrating the level of smuggling back into this country. I am pleased to say that exports of the company's products to the unlikely destinations of...
Edward Leigh: ...worthy aim. It is ludicrous that such a small percentage of people recycle their waste. Many people, even in rural areas, are conscious of the cost to the environment of all our rubbish going up in smoke or being buried in landfill sites, and they would like to be given the choice. People in my area would like West Lindsey council to collect plastic bottles or whatever separately, and we...
Edward Leigh: Yes, of course. In that case, we were looking at Imperial Tobacco's exporting billions of cigarettes to Kaliningrad, Moldova and Andorra, where they could not possibly all be smoked. For that to be possible, every inhabitant of Kaliningrad would need to have smoked several hundred cigarettes a day. So they can only have been exported to Kaliningrad in order to be re-imported here as smuggled...
Edward Leigh: Smoking is bad for us—I do not do it. Of course, excess alcohol is bad for us too. No one would ever accuse smoking of making people drive cars into innocent children, beat up their wives or run amok in society. There is thus an issue of moral equivalence. What is the Secretary of State going to do about alcohol? Does he not realise that once Governments start to make moral judgments about...
Edward Leigh: .... The weakest part of our argument concerns the health risks. I say that because it is not for me to lecture people if they want to indulge in a fundamentally unhealthy activity. If people want to smoke, it is none of my business. People need not listen to me, but they should listen to the Terence Higgins Trust, a body trusted by the homosexual lobby, which says that one in five gay men...
Edward Leigh: I understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was intervened on. Other matters might cause the Minister to act, such as pesticidal smoke cartridges; shotgun cartridges; magnesium blocks, which are sold to help to light fires in emergencies; Hilti guns, which fire heavy-duty bolts and nails in the construction industry; alarm mines—
Edward Leigh: ...will the Bill achieve? I suspect that it will simply create more paperwork. Many people in the House, including the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock), believe passionately that we smoke too many cigarettes. Is she suggesting that the way to deal with the problem is to introduce a Bill to give local authorities the power to carry out an assessment of cigarette smoking in...
Edward Leigh: ...Gentleman's Bill, Britain would have warnings covering 25 per cent. That would wipe out the entire tobacco industry in Britain and cigarettes would be imported instead. How will that deal with the smoking habit in this country—[Interruption.]
Edward Leigh: ...amount of emotion. There is a complete lack of rigour in what he says. He talks about 70,000 children dying. Is he really suggesting that if we banned all cigarette advertising, there would be no smoking? That is absurd. As we all know, the evidence on whether advertising encourages any or significant numbers of people to take up smoking is terribly mixed. The hon. Gentleman must be...
Edward Leigh: I take up the point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). Since 1986, the number of people smoking middle-tar cigarettes has fallen from 40 per cent. to 4 per cent. The central feature of the arguments that are being advanced by some of my hon. Friends is that if we ban advertising there will be no inducement to switch to low-tar cigarettes.
Edward Leigh: ...been made against the Bill, I hope that I will be allowed to make a point. Surely my hon. Friend, who is a reasonable man, will accept that, notwithstanding one's disapproval of smoking—I do not smoke, either—there is a fundamental civil liberties point; that never before have we banned advertising of something that was freely available over the counter, not on a prescription and not...
Edward Leigh: ...a very interesting academic lecture, but it was absolutely meaningless because I have already said that if there was a market for thin slab production we would welcome that. Once again, despite the smoke-screen, the hon. Gentleman has failed to answer the question to which everyone in Scotland wants an answer. Will Labour subsidise Ravenscraig? Will it nationalise it? Will it force...
Edward Leigh: ...quangos, a few controls, a few state subsidies, a few interest rate cuts, a few tax increases and a regional policy. What does one get? An industrial soufflé that collapses at the first puff of smoke. Such are the Opposition's policies—they have not worked before and they will not work again. The Labour party has not explained how its policies would satisfy the Commission. Our policies...
Edward Leigh: ...a disgrace that hon. Members cannot ask questions about the regional development grants because the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) was not present in the Chamber as the white smoke has not yet come out of Cowley street?