Children and Families Bill

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

We can debate whether we should replace the words “smoking in cars” with the words “smoking in enclosed public places”. However, the arguments that are made by Government Members are all too often the wrong arguments and they are being left behind by society, which wants us to move again. That is why I support the Lords amendments.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Protecting children is one of the most important responsibilities that we have. We know that smoking kills, we know the dangers of passive smoking and we know that children are more at risk than adults from the effects of smoke.

Half a million children are exposed to potentially toxic levels of second-hand smoke in family cars each week, according to the British Lung Foundation. Children’s lungs are smaller and children have faster breathing rates. They are therefore particularly vulnerable to second-hand smoke, especially in a confined space such as a car.

Children have no choice but to travel in a family car. Would it be good if car drivers, including parents, chose not to smoke when children were present? Absolutely. However, in the case of seat belts, it took a change in the law to ensure that there was a change in behaviour. The proportion of people wearing seat belts went up from 25% to more than 90% after legislation was introduced.

As I said, protecting children is one of our most important responsibilities. We can exercise that responsibility today. We have to choose between the right of an adult to do as he or she chooses in the privacy of his or her car and the protection of the health of children. Throughout the passage of the Bill, Government Members have rightly agreed that the protection of children is paramount. I hope that all Members will agree that we should make it an offence to smoke in a vehicle when children are present.

[Mrs Main]

I have never heard of a more illiberal, nonsensical and unenforceable proposal than Lords amendment 125. I am sorry that it is being proposed by the Government and that Members are being asked not to consider the detail, because the devil is in the detail.

As has been said, the word “vehicle” refers to a broad spectrum of containers, if I may put it like that, including motor homes, Traveller caravans and, potentially, narrow boats. The proposal suggests that smoking while driving an open-top car, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) referred, is more injurious to health than a mother smoking while pregnant. I find that impossible to accept.

I do not know how the police will arbitrate between two 17-year-olds in a car if one of them has been smoking. I do not think that we should be considering using this resource if we are not banning cigarettes, full stop. I do not smoke and have never smoked. I am a mother of four children. I fundamentally believe that we should not make bad, unenforceable law.

If the Labour party represented the working class far more than it suggests it does, it would be making a very different argument, because a huge tranche of the population will see itself criminalised. We should be advising people not to smoke in front of their children. We have been winning the argument on smoking. The Government have adverts on the television that show a mum blowing the smoke out of the door and then say, “What if you could see what it does to your child’s lungs?” We will not stop those adverts because we are trying to educate people.

Under the proposal, we will be saying that a child can get into a fog-filled car after their mum has been smoking in it. As long as she is not still doing it, that will not be an offence. We will be saying that it is an offence to smoke in a van if Traveller children or others who live in transit are sitting in the back. However, if I sit in my kitchen and people can see me through the front window, fag in hand and baby over my shoulder, comforting the child, that will not be an offence. It would be easy to track down such behaviour, so why do we not say that smoking in front of children should be banned or that smoking should be banned? It is because we think that it would be illiberal to go into people’s homes. However, some people’s homes are vehicles. I look forward to people explaining that to the communities that will be affected disproportionately.

I cannot believe that we are not supposed to inquire about the detail.