Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, the point that strikes me most forcefully in this argument is not only that we are protecting children—I am with the noble Baroness opposite completely on this—but that we are dealing with a killer. Tobacco is a killer, and we need to put it as bluntly and starkly as that. The problem with all the rationalisations we have been hearing, particularly from the Opposition Benches, is that it results in confused messages being sent to vulnerable people in society. The message that this is a killer and that we will do nothing to promote it, directly or indirectly, is not clear-cut. The message is that, in certain conditions and in certain ways, we can promote it. I simply ask noble Lords to look at the neurosis which the nation has worked itself up to on Mexican flu. Would we be hearing such rationalisations in that kind of sphere? Of course not: we would be saying that the nation must combine in making sure that what is necessary is done. I wish we could hear a united voice at this juncture. I want to express one caveat about the general strategy. It has already been mentioned by noble Lords this afternoon. I believe that those who share the strong view I just expressed would be very foolish if they supposed that we could win the battle simply by prohibitions of this sort. There must be a comprehensive social strategy. I take one example, and I want to challenge the Opposition very specifically on this. My own daughter worked with a team dedicated to persuading pregnant women and young mothers not to smoke. It was a pioneer project for the National Health Service and the Lambeth Borough Council. She was determined that this project should succeed, and, indeed, the team won a refunding, which was illustration that it was making progress. I am not altogether certain that she would be very happy with me talking about this, but her comments made such an impression on me that I am going to. She confided in me that one of the realities she had to face was that, for many of the young women within her sphere of responsibility, about the only break they got in a tough, unacceptable life was their fag. If that is the case, it seems to me that we have to address the issues of deprivation, disadvantage, and overstressed single parents. When I hear those arguments coming powerfully from the Opposition Benches, I will begin to listen to them in their other rationalisations.