Health Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The main point is that this should not be billed as the tobacco display restriction or ban. The Government should be promoting this measure as, "We think the public are thick" because in effect they are saying that people will buy cigarettes only if they are on display and that they will not buy them otherwise—that if they are on display people will think they therefore must be an attractive product and will buy them. That is a completely false premise. People have a choice as to whether they want to buy them. I am perfectly prepared to trust my constituents to make these decisions for themselves. I trust them to be able to decide for themselves whether they want to buy a packet of cigarettes. They do not need the Government telling them what they can and cannot do, and what they can and cannot see when they go shopping. This is the nanny state gone mad. Everything that the Government do always has at the back of it this: that they know better than the public who elected them. I do not see why they have such little faith in the public when they stand for election hoping that people will choose who to vote for, yet they cannot even allow them to make a choice as to how they buy a particular brand of product. On every conceivable level this proposed ban is wrong, because it goes against the principle of individual responsibility, free choice and people making their own decisions, and it will have a very bad effect on small shops.