Health and Care Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Lords Hansard _ Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I was not intending to intervene, but I was prompted to do so not least by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham. That the PPRS has been sustained by Governments, albeit amended from time to time, should not lead us to the conclusion that all products should have their pricing and regulation controlled by government. I do not think that the analogy runs at all, so we should ignore the PPRS for these purposes.

My noble friend on the Front Bench whom I believe is replying to this debate and I were in a coalition Government with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and we were pretty clear then. I remember a decade ago creating a bit of a storm by saying that I wanted to end up with a smoke-free England. We have reached a point now where there are tobacco companies which think that we are going to arrive at that position, and so we should. I do not think that this debate is about whether we achieve that; it is about the mechanisms by which we do so.

If my noble friend reiterates the Government’s intention, willingness and sense of urgency about bringing forward measures, as I hope he does, I would not bind the hands of the Government with these amendments. Frankly, even if they were passed, nothing would happen unless and until the Government bring forward legislation for the purpose. It would be better for us to have the debate and make the position clear. I do not disagree with the arguments presented by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and others—when we were in government, we implemented things such as the ban on display in shops and preventing the availability of cigarettes to youngsters through vending machines, which I think was one of the most important things we could do. We made progress; we need to make more. We need the Government to come forward with proposals for that, but these amendments are not necessary if the Government say that they are willing to make progress.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak, but I wanted to counter the point made to the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that he was simply rehearsing lines from FOREST, the pro-freedom to smoke group. I also inadvertently receive communiques from ASH, the anti-smoking lobby group—I think it has me muddled up with someone else—and I have heard many of its lines rehearsed here as well on the other side of the argument. I thought it might be worth noting that.

Secondly, I have to declare an interest: I smoke. I appreciate that this means that I am beyond any redemption—goodness knows, I am controversial enough on a range of other things, but that is probably the worst.

[A noble Lord]

Hear, hear!

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Well, good. I have got a few “hear, hears”.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

Does the noble Baroness accept that a crucial difference is that organisations such as ASH are funded by organisations concerned with public health, including Cancer Research UK and people who deal with trying to save lives, while FOREST is funded by the tobacco industry, which kills half its customers?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I was coming on to that point. I would really appreciate a dose of honesty in this House. If those people who are so hostile to smoking a legal product believe that it is the killer they allege, they should call for smoking to be made illegal and be done with it. At the moment, tobacco companies are legal companies. People talk about them with such distaste, as though they should be abolished. It would be better and more heartfelt if they argued that tobacco should be illegal; then we would have a different debate. Public health is not always neutral when you talk about public health lobbyists, in my opinion. The freedom to choose to do something that is bad for your health is still allowed in a free society, despite some people wishing it was not.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I do not recall anybody suggesting in the debate that tobacco companies should be made illegal. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, is not suggesting that, just because the number of smokers is going down, nothing more should be done. I thought I heard the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, suggest that, if we carry on at this rate, it will be another 25 years before we get to where we need to be.

--- Later in debate ---

I offer these stories, which come from recently retired doctors. They believe the time has come for a change in the law to allow rational human beings to slip away in peace. I changed my mind on this issue some seven years ago, and I know that I am out of step with my church, but I believe that those of us who take this approach are on the right side of history. Therefore, I support the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Baker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made the accusation that lots of the amendments to the Bill of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, were a sort of Machiavellian plot to subvert the democratic process. I want to point out that I had tabled one of those amendments, about mental health, partly because I thought that that was our job here, that when a Bill was before Parliament, we followed it through—to every Bill that I have followed through here, there have been myriad, endless amendments. I thought that our role was to scrutinise proposed laws, to debate the merits and demerits and so on. I was therefore disappointed that there was no Committee stage of that Private Member’s Bill. So I do not accept the suggestion that those who put down amendments did so somehow to avoid debate; in fact, it was the opposite.

My general view on the problems of parliamentary and democratic process was best summed up by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. I also feel queasy that there is a kind of subverting of the parliamentary process by an amendment on assisted dying or assisted suicide being put down on the Health and Care Bill. It is totally inappropriate. It is hijacking a Bill. Whatever else assisted dying and assisted suicide is, it does not contribute to improving anyone’s health. It requires ending a life; it is not a healthcare matter, and it will require a major change in the criminal law, so this is the wrong Bill.

However, I have every sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and feel his frustration. I feel all the time that there are lots of laws I want to change; there are lots of things I want to change about the country; there are lots of times when I feel as though the public think one thing and the Government ignore them. What one therefore needs to do is to lobby the Government—the noble Lord probably has closer access to them than a lot of us—or, as maybe I would do, to organise a demonstration or a protest, unless the Government had got away with banning that by the time we got there. In other words, in a democracy, there are lots of frustrations that need to be expressed if you want to change the law. Using our position as unelected legislators to add an amendment to an inappropriate Bill seems to be completely wrong on a matter of such huge importance.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, because it is important to recognise that she is quite right. We should be able to debate all the amendments that Members wish to debate, in both Houses, on a Bill of this sort—a Bill which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, said, addresses one of the most fundamental social issues facing society.

However, I disagree that this amendment is nothing to do with health. The last days, weeks and months of your life, the healthcare that you receive, and the options open to you are part of the healthcare provided throughout the NHS and elsewhere. So I believe that it is appropriate to discuss this here.

It is a novel procedure. It is not a procedure that mandates the Government to support the draft Bill that would be brought in. The amendment is precisely designed not to do that but to ensure that a proper and full debate is held. I normally follow the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, closely and often agree with him, but I do not accept that we are imposing something on the other House by passing an amendment to a Bill which is going to have lots of amendments made to it and will go to the other place, where those amendments will be debated and accepted or not accepted.

Most of all, I support this amendment because it is now nearly 20 years since I served on the Select Committee on the Joffe Bill. There have been numerous attempts since then to resolve this most important issue. They have all run into the sand one way or another. Our legislature has not found itself able to produce a result that satisfies everyone that there has been full debate and resolution found to how we should go ahead as a society. In that time, 20 other jurisdictions have managed that task, because they have found a way of providing adequate time so to do. For those reasons, I support this amendment.