Children and Families Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend just referred to how difficult it is to break the habit once you have formed it. I was a smoker in my youth. I progressed to a pipe, and on one occasion I was in some gathering with fellow young people when the bowl of my pipe dropped off into a pint of beer. I realised that this was a message from God and that one or other had to stop. I had little difficulty in choosing beer with which to continue. We all have these experiences. I am sure I am not alone in remembering with some guilt that, having joined the smoking culture—certainly the presentation of tobacco and cigarettes was an important part of the wooing of a person into the habit—I used to take tremendous pride in choosing the right cigarettes for my father on his birthday or at Christmas. That was very important, because he was a smoker and I was able to present him with a well wrapped packet of what he would like. Later in life, he suffered a severe stroke which left him speechless for the rest of his life, and I have always had an element of guilt about the fact that I no doubt contributed to that development in his health.

I do not understand why we prevaricate on these issues, as we are talking about a killer. Let us get this absolutely straight: it is a killer. We have no hesitation in saying that we must have rules about seat belts in cars because children get killed in accidents. We have special rules about children in cars because of how vulnerable they are. Why, if we take this seriously for seat belts and the rest, do we not take it equally seriously for tobacco?

My final point is that, as a society, we are agonising over the difficulties faced by our health service as it tries to grapple with the pressures on it. By enabling and encouraging young people to become part of the smoking community—by allowing them to drift into it or, indeed, by encouraging the deterioration in their health because of our failure to take rigorous action—we are deliberately adding to the problems of the health service. It seems to me that this is not only wrong but irresponsible. On the one hand to be grieving and agonising about the problems of the health service and the shortage of funds, and on the other hand to be aggravating it by our failure to act where we could act, seems to me irrational behaviour.

I commend noble Lords who have tabled these amendments, which certainly deserve support. I believe we shall be looked at very critically indeed in history for having prevaricated and pussyfooted for so long on such a crucial issue.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I was going to make rather a longer speech the other night, but when I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, present Amendment 263, most of the points in my speech were covered. However, I add my voice in support of what she said and of the other amendments before us today.

When I was 15, I remember being called home from school, as my father had had a very severe heart attack. He smoked between 40 and 60 cigarettes a day. I was there when the doctor told him, “You know what has caused this: it is your smoking”. I avoided smoking as a result—it brought the message home to me. When I used to travel in the car with him, invariably the little side window on the driver’s side would be slightly open, and most of the smoke would come back to me. We have legislation that protects people who have to work in vehicles from exposure to smoke—my goodness, we should be protecting children in a similar situation.

People say, “What next? You’ll be saying that people cannot smoke in their own homes”. The difference is that, in their own homes, children can go to another room—up to their bedroom or wherever—but when they are travelling in a car they cannot do anything like that. I very much hope that the Committee, and in due course, on Report, the House, will take on board an amendment along the lines of that moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. There is certainly widespread support on the Cross Benches for these amendments. If the Government do not move something themselves, I suspect the House will move on their behalf and that this will go forward into legislation.

[Lord Palmer (CB)]

My Lords, I fear that I may well be a lone voice in not supporting this amendment, even though I think smoking is a revolting habit and that everything must be done to encourage young people to refrain from it. There has been a lot of research into this, and a far more effective way to reduce youth smoking would be to ban the proxy purchasing of all tobacco products for under-18s, as is the case currently for alcohol.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Lords and Commons Cigar and Pipe Smokers’ Club and am, for my sins, a shareholder in BAT.

It must not be forgotten, particularly following the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lord, Lord Judd, how much revenue is raised by the sale of legal tobacco products and, more importantly, how much income the Treasury is deprived of through illicit imports. I have a nasty feeling that if this amendment is agreed to, or voted on on Report, it will only compound that terrible figure.