Health Bill [Lords]

It just shows how much I notice on those journeys, but I welcome the fact. The survey was interesting. Eighty-nine per cent. agreed with banning retailers from selling tobacco if convicted of selling to under-age smokers. The overwhelming majority took the position that if people continue to sell illegally, they should not be able to trade. Another significant figure is that 86 per cent. supported licensing retailers to sell tobacco, with licences being revoked if retailers sold to under-age smokers, while 81 per cent. agreed with the idea of a ban on smoking in cars with passengers aged under 18. Some 79 per cent. would also support a crackdown on smuggling, which is a critical issue in the north-west, so perhaps we can discuss smuggling when the Bill comes back to the Floor of the House. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may know this, but an anti-smuggling exercise has been conducted in our borough over the past few days that has led to a massive haul of illicit cigarettes and financial resources from organised crime networks. Around two thirds of respondents supported ending the sale of cigarettes through vending machines, stopping the sale of packs of 10 cigarettes and the removal of displays of tobacco on premises on which it is sold. Such surveys demonstrate a desire among smokers and non-smokers alike across the north-west to protect children from tobacco and its effects. This excellent Bill has been through the other place, but clauses 22 and 23, which deal with the power to prohibit or restrict sales from cigarette vending machines, should go further and allow for a full ban from the outset. I accept that we should strike a balance, particularly in the current economic climate, between the rights of businesses to carry on legal trade and the need to stop children from purchasing cigarettes, but let us be quite clear. Tobacco is the only product that can be sold legally which kills its customers on a daily and recurrent basis. That is why the tobacco industry requires the fuel of publicity and investment to restrict the effects of legislation aimed at preventing people from taking up smoking in the first place. Given that the industry has that view of itself and given the disproportionate number of children using such machines, as compared with adult smokers, it is only proportionate that we should put children's health first and ban such machines completely. In 2006, one in six children in England who were regular smokers usually bought their cigarettes from vending machines. In contrast, in 2008, only one in 20 adult smokers said that they had bought cigarettes from vending machines over the previous six months. Vending machines are a convenience to get round bans and encourage young people to take up smoking, which will lead to premature death and, with absolute certainty, cause injuries to their hearts, lungs and other parts of their anatomy. The British Heart Foundation has estimated that machines are the source of cigarettes for around 46,000 children in England and Wales. We could fill up my right hon. Friend's Everton ground with children who regularly use vending machines and still have 11,000 outside. Think about it, Madam Deputy Speaker: the whole of Goodison Park filled with children smoking their heads off who will not see Everton win the European cup 20 years from now—[Laughter]—this is a serious point—because they will fall ill prematurely and die, because they have been encouraged to take up smoking by the tobacco industry. Calculations by the British Heart Foundation in 2006 suggested that around 45 million cigarettes were sold to 11 to 15-year-olds through cigarette vending machines. Think about it, Madam Deputy Speaker: that is equivalent to the size of a major European country, almost the total population of England. Think about it: children as young as 11 and under being able to buy cigarettes from vending machines. It does not seem feasible, but that is the reality. Would we allow children to seek access to vending machines for alcohol, fireworks or other products, such as glue? Of course we would not: they are dangerous to children. However, the most dangerous substance of all to children, with absolutely certainty, is tobacco, yet we allow them to purchase it in their thousands on a daily basis through vending machines. That is why the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Smokefree Northwest and other organisations have been campaigning for a ban. That is also why more than 110 Members have supported early-day motion 768, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), which calls for such a ban. Imposing such a ban would close a loophole. I have said that it is hard to imagine the sale of solvents, alcohol, fireworks or knives in vending machines; if it is not right to sell those products in that way, it is certainly not right to sell tobacco in that way either. The fact that cigarettes remain available in vending machines is an anomaly, and we need to tackle it in order to stop the harm being done to our children, and to prevent another generation from missing out on longevity and a healthy and safe lifestyle. We cannot simply leave this to an industry that needs to replenish its dying customer base on a daily basis by allowing our children to be undermined in this way. The only thing that our nation has to ensure its longevity is its younger generation. What we hand on to them must be different from and better than what was handed on to our generation. Yet, each year, we stand back and watch the undermining of the capacity of another generation of young British children to be the best that they can be, because we are doing nothing to prevent the tobacco industry and its allies from allowing our children to gain free access to tobacco products through vending machines. Last week, I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson)—this shows how much I knew about the reshuffle—asking whether I could meet him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo) to discuss the possibility of improving clause 22 and ensuring that we could achieve a total ban on cigarette vending machines. I feel extremely strongly about this, as do hon. Members on both sides of the House. I do not claim to feel more strongly about it than anyone else, but I am the grandfather of 10 grandchildren, and I want to ensure that every one of them—representing all children—lives to adulthood and becomes a grandparent and a great-grandparent. I look around my constituency, and I see too many people in their 40s, and even in their 30s, dying of smoking-related diseases. They never go on to become the best that they could be. They never go on to become a grandparent or a great-grandparent. Some of them die a nasty, tobacco-related death just as their lives are coming to fruition and their relationship with the next generation of their family is just beginning. Why is it that someone in my constituency who is 40 years of age has only a 25 per cent. chance of survival following a smoking-related heart attack? Fifty per cent. of my constituents who have had a heart attack from tobacco-related heart disease die at home, before they even get access to the emergency services. Of the remaining 50 per cent., half die on their way to hospital. Only the remaining 25 per cent. have an opportunity to continue their lives, which might be saved through intervention and heart surgery. This is carnage on a grand scale, and it is unacceptable. Clause 22 needs to be strengthened. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State cannot respond to my request for a ban this evening, will he please meet me and other hon. Members to discuss the matter? It is a matter of life and death. We have come so far and done so much in the teeth of great opposition. People said that the smoking ban would not work, yet it has received major public acceptance. It is not true to say that businesses have closed down as a result of the legislation. In the years to come, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who might otherwise have suffered ill health and premature death will not now do so, because of the work that we have done in the House and the ban that we have imposed. My proposal represents the final piece of the jigsaw. I implore my right hon. Friend, in his new post, to be brave and not to take heed of those who claim that this would be a regulation too far. I would introduce a thousand regulations if they saved a thousand children's lives. I would introduce a million regulations if they would save a million lives. Over the next 20 years and beyond, the actions that we have already taken will save that number of lives, but we need to prevent young people from smoking in the first place, and ensure that we do not give them access to cigarettes for the convenience of an industry that wants to use vending machines to get round the existing legislation. We must close this loophole and save tens of thousands of children from illness and premature death in the years to come. Be brave—get the ban in!