Health Bill [HL]

I intervene briefly to support my colleagues, who clearly worked with, and had a lot to do with, children over the years. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, gave an extremely interesting speech. I, too, am very concerned about whether we break the law. I am not so concerned about manufacturers bringing down the price of cigarettes because the Government could always put the tax up, which would mean that they could be just as expensive. I make it clear that I have nothing at all against adults doing what they want to do with each other in private. Here, we are trying to stop young people taking up smoking, which will injure their health and kill them prematurely if they carry on. That is what we are trying to do. We do not want to stop adults. From my experience as a student and as a mother of a big family, and from my experience of my children’s friends and of working for many years in a youth counselling centre in Kentish Town, I know that young people are dedicated followers of fashion. They always go for what the herd is doing, what the herd is smoking and what the herd is wearing. That is what they are meant to be like. My brothers taught me to smoke when I was about 16 because they did not want to be embarrassed by a sister who might make a fool of herself if offered a cigarette. I was taught to smoke outside the back door of someone’s house. As I said, young people need to follow fashion. As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours said—indeed, we are of the same opinion—Black Russian were definitely the vogue when I was a student, but we moved on to Gauloise, which then became extremely chic and everyone went around smoking them. I wanted to intervene following the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, because for a moment it made me think of my brothers. I thought that she was going to hand out free samples to us all to try to get us all going again, which for people who were smokers would be very easy to do. She obviously collects empty fag packets, which is very sad.