Sammy Wilson: ...Ireland’s position within it. My last point is about one of those things that I think is mad, but others have praised: introducing legislation—albeit well meaning and everything else—to ban smoking. In 20 years’ time, some poor shopkeeper is going to have to decide, “Is that person who came in here asking for 20 fags 48 or 47? Is he going to have to send his 48-year-old mate in...
Sammy Wilson: ...frustration and sometimes a detrimental impact. They protest about the quality of air in London and the burning of fuels, and what do they do? They cause traffic jams where people are belching out smoke from the back of their cars and burning petrol. Yet it seems that we should tolerate that. Unfortunately, it has been tolerated. I saw the frustration it caused many commuters. We see it on...
Sammy Wilson: ...back the Government in the same way as we have done. In fact, we had the situation last week when the SNP was so determined to annoy Members of this House that it called votes when we were in the Smoking Room cheering on England to get them through to the quarter-finals—they are now in the semi-finals. What were SNP Members doing? They were doing their best to disrupt our night of...
Sammy Wilson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have surrendered to the lobby from those who oppose smoking? They have put people out of jobs and yet their very objective will not be achieved, because all that will happen is that people will move over to an illegal market, with far more dangerous tobacco products and the financing of criminal gangs?
Sammy Wilson: ..., we expect people to have an entitlement to, that is, the freedom to make certain choices? There is also the question about the enforceability of any legislation to consider. I have to ask, on smoking in cars, where do you stop? Would it extend to smoking in people's homes etc? Also, how enforceable is such legislation? I think that we have to put that kind of decision in the...
Sammy Wilson: ...of that that is due to branding. All that I can say, however, is that given that, along with the name of the particular company, gory details are given on each package about the effect that smoking will have on you, I doubt very much whether packaging, in whatever shape or form it takes, will have the impact of attracting new customers. That brings me to my last point, which is on...
Sammy Wilson: .... Do not forget that, in my constituency, there are hundreds of people who are employed in Ballymena in well-paid jobs. Those people's jobs will be affected not as result of stopping people smoking but as a result of switching people to the criminal gangs who import cheap cigarettes and sell them on the market.
Sammy Wilson: ...much of what some Members have called "evidence". The question is, "Choose between branded and non-branded and tell us which is more effective." That does not tell you whether people would stop smoking if the only choice that they had was unbranded products. It tells you that they made a choice. That is the point I am making. It is nonsense to ask, "Are you saying that they're...
Sammy Wilson: With all due respect, the debate is not on the effects of smoking but on the most effective way of preventing new clients from coming into the smoking market. Nobody is questioning that the experts are genuine in their desire to stop people dying a horrible death from smoking. The question is this: are we going in a direction that will be effective?
Sammy Wilson: Of course, and I am not surprised. The other research showed what influences people to start smoking in the first place. One of the reasons that smoking is more prevalent among young people from lower socio-economic groups is because their parents are more likely to smoke. Parents are an important influence. Peer pressure is an important influence. Curiosity is an important...
Sammy Wilson: ...addressing the problem, do you balance it with all the other things and objectives that we, in a democracy, wish to see? This kind of legislation illustrates the problem. There is a problem with smoking. I am not a smoker. In my time as a public representative, before bans were placed on smoking indoors etc I can remember coming away from many a housing association meeting in east...
Sammy Wilson: Let me come to that point, which is important. If there are detrimental consequences of smoking, what do you do to discourage people from starting down that road? I heard some Members say that we have to do something. In legislating, it is not good enough that we introduce regulations that are ineffective, or are shown to be ineffective, and then have to keep adding restriction on top...
Sammy Wilson: I thank the Member for giving way. I wish that he would listen to the logic of his argument. On the one hand, he argued that there are already numerous restrictions on smoking — he did not go through them, but he could, and it would take him some time. Yet, consistently, 25% of people in Northern Ireland smoke, and the figure is rising. Does that not tell him something about the...
Sammy Wilson: He throws out this statement that the evidence that has been produced to the Committee shows that the legislation will dissuade people from taking up smoking. Where does the evidence come from? The only place where this has been tried is Australia. It has not been in even a year yet, so there has been no assessment done of the impact of the legislation. So, where did he get the...
Sammy Wilson: Would the Member like to tell us whether he regularly sits in pubs inhaling this smoke or did he in the past?
Sammy Wilson: The hon. Gentleman talks about how plain packaging makes smoking less attractive, but the evidence from Australia is actually that plain packaging makes those cigarettes less attractive than those that have a brand name on them, not that it makes smoking less attractive. It simply makes one packet less attractive than the other. There is no evidence that it reduces the number of people coming...
Sammy Wilson: ...on cigarettes, 200,000 people are still recruited into the cigarette industry every year? It is evident that the packaging—the shape and colour, and what is on it—does not deter people from smoking.
Sammy Wilson: ...of detectors at the end of their lifespan. Given that their lifespan is five or seven years, as Mr O’Loan pointed out, the danger is that they would not be replaced. Many Members mentioned smoke alarms, which are required under building regulations. Of those that were surveyed, 16% were deemed not to be working, and in 50% of fatalities in house fires, the smoke alarms were found not to...
Sammy Wilson: I made it here just in time, although I am breathless. First, I wish to thank — [Interruption.] No, I am not smoking. I will leave that to you. I welcome the report that has been discussed here today, and I thank the Committee for the work that it has done. I have a copy of the report. I have read its recommendations and have received a briefing on them. Like other Members, I wish to...