Children and Families Bill

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger]

We are considering a specific provision, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to bring forward further measures, I am sure that the House would wish to debate them. We are talking about children who do not have a choice when travelling in a car.

We all know the dangers of passive smoking, but the reality is that its worst consequences are inflicted predominantly on the very youngest in our society. Children are especially vulnerable to the dangers because they have smaller lungs and faster breathing rates than adults.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

While it is easy for opponents to make a mockery of the suggestion —no doubt we will hear a great deal more of that this evening—has not the House of Commons a responsibility to do everything possible to protect children from the effects of smoking? If the proposal can work, it is at least worth a try.

[Luciana Berger]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

We all know where this is going to end up. The people at Action on Smoking and Health, who appear to be the only people the Department of Health listens to, are not going to hand over their company car keys when this measure gets passed tonight—they will be campaigning for the next one, which is of course to get smoking banned in everybody’s homes as well. Once we have agreed to the principle of banning smoking in people’s private cars, how on earth can we logically say that there is a great difference regarding people’s homes? Of course, we cannot. We all know that this will end up in people’s homes and caravans, and all the rest of it.

[Mr Winnick]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I have said I am not going to give way. The hon. Gentleman can listen for once.

Moreover, this is totally and utterly unenforceable. What on earth are we doing saying to the police, whose resources are already stretched, that all of a sudden this should be a new priority for them to undertake? Have they got nothing better to do than go up as close as they can to a moving car to see whether there happens to be a small child in the back seat? Of course, this is not just about small children but all children. How on earth does the driver prove that the person in the back of the car is over 18 rather than under 18? What happens when the driver throws the cigarette away and the police have to try to prove whether they were smoking when they were pulled over? The whole thing is completely unenforceable. It is gesture politics of the worst kind, with Ministers and shadow Ministers trying to flex their health zealotry at all these health organisations and saying, “We’re tougher on these matters than the others.”

Standardised packaging—it is not plain packaging, as some people say—is also nonsense. In many cases, the standardised packaging is more colourful than the existing packaging, so this measure will not do anything for the people who say that all the colourful packaging encourages people to smoke. It is already the case that cigarettes cannot be displayed in large shops. What on earth is the point of having plain packaging for products that are already behind a counter and cannot even be seen? Again, the whole thing is complete nonsense.

All these arguments are arguments for banning smoking altogether. If people had the courage of their convictions and said, “We should ban smoking altogether”, I would at least have some respect for them, but they dare not say that that is what they want to do, even though we know it is their real agenda. While cigarettes are a legal product, brands should be free to use their own branding on the packs. Standardised packaging would simply be a triumph of the nanny state that would presumably soon be followed by plain packaging for alcohol, sweets, crisps, and all the foods that supposedly lead to obesity. Once we have gone down this road for one thing, why would we not have plain packaging for everything? We know, particularly given the current Ministers and shadow Ministers, that that is what it would quickly lead to.

I have tabled three amendments to Lords amendment 124 to try to make it more sensible. The Lords amendment states that the Secretary of State can make regulations if he believes that they

“may contribute at any time to reducing the risk of harm to…the health or welfare of”

children—I repeat, “may” contribute. This gives the Secretary of State the authority to make a decision on a whim just because he happens to think that it might make a difference. My first amendment would change “may” to “will” so that he would need to have some evidence for making a change rather than just doing it on a whim.

The second amendment relates to regulations. Under Lords amendment 124, the Government are saying that they can make lots of provisions and as long as some of them are capable of having a positive effect, that is fine. They can propose 10 ridiculous things and two sensible ones, and the regulations allow them to do it as long as some of them are sensible. My amendment says that “each” provision that they want to bring in should be capable of making a difference, not just the odd one or two in a whole series.

The Minister said that it would be a constraint on the Minister’s power to accept my amendments. Well, I make no apology for trying to constrain the Minister’s power. That is what the House of Commons is all about—trying to make sure that sensible decisions are taken based on evidence, not just on the latest whim of the nanny state brigade whom she has listened to. We are supposedly here to try to defend the freedoms of people in this country. This Government want to trample over every single one of those freedoms. It makes me wonder what is the difference between having Labour or this Government in charge. I expect no better from Labour, but I did expect an awful lot better from a supposedly Conservative-led Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I am a veteran of many children’s Bills. Yet again, such a Bill has been hijacked at the 11th hour by a subject that was not part of the original Bill. Usually, the subject is smacking; today, it is smoking.

I hate, loathe and detest smoking. I do not want any of my children or anybody else’s children to smoke. However, I also hate, loathe and detest the nanny state and its increasingly frenetic and insidious tentacles, which are creeping into individuals’ private lives and spaces.

I support many other measures that will suppress smoking and reduce the prevalence of smoking. I am for in-your-face, horrific graphics that show people the ghastly things that smoking does to their insides. I am in favour of higher tax. I am in favour of pariah status for people who smoke. I have no problem with the Lords amendments on packaging and on discouraging people from buying tobacco for under-age people.

However, I am against a measure that yet again undermines the parenting role of parents in favour of the state. The state makes for a poor parent. This measure will criminalise good parents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) said. People should not smoke in front of their children, whether they are in a car, outside a car, in a house or wherever else, not because the state threatens them with a fine or a criminal record, but because it is a stupid thing to do. I will not quite use the language of the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), but it is stupid on so many levels. We should have much more empathy towards the health and welfare of our children, but we should support parents, not seek to supplant them, as the state has an increasing tendency to do and is trying to do yet again with this amendment.

If we are serious about this measure, we should have the courage of our convictions and ban smoking altogether. There is only one way that this legislation can go, and the natural conclusion is that there will be a ban on smoking in private homes. As I said earlier—not entirely facetiously—we must face the logic that pregnant women who can do untold damage to their unborn children through smoking and through foetal alcohol syndrome, which affects one in 100 children with very serious consequences, should be criminalised for doing the same thing in principle that this amendment tries to criminalise. Then there are the implications of not feeding our children healthy food. The amendment is unenforceable. It is bad law and is about supplanting, not supporting, the parent, and I cannot support it.

[Mr Winnick]

There is the notion that this amendment on the safety of children in cars is an attack on freedom, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) rightly said, a model society will always need to put various restrictions on what individuals can and cannot do.

Reference has been made to seat belts, and it so happens that I was in the Chamber during the debates on that. I imagine that if the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) had been present at the time, he would have argued strongly against compulsory seat belts in cars—of course he would have because when I was listening to him today, I heard the authentic voice of primitive Toryism.

[Philip Davies]

Thank you!

[Mr Winnick]

I do not necessarily work on the assumption that whatever the hon. Member for Shipley opposes I should support, Mr Deputy Speaker, but nevertheless that is usually the case.

I was also around when we debated banning smoking in most places, which it was argued at the time was a grave restriction on freedom. Who in the House of Commons today, in 2014, would argue that, apart from the hon. Member for Shipley and a few others? The ban, which was so controversial at the time, has been widely accepted in the country. People said that it would not be accepted and that the law would be broken, but has it been? Where is the evidence that the law on smoking passed in the previous Parliament has been broken?

I accept entirely that it may be difficult to implement the measures that have been suggested on smoking in cars, and I do not underestimate the difficulties. I do, however, say simply that it is worth a try. Every organisation that has been mentioned and is concerned with public health has argued that the amendment should be put into law, as I believe it should be. It provides an opportunity to protect children in the way it describes, and it is likely, however difficult it may be to police, that people will accept that the law has been passed by Parliament, and that there will be a greater desire to ensure that it is observed. This measure is worth a try, and anything that can protect children from the dangers of smoking should certainly be supported tonight.