Truss claims ‘health police’ will push for other bans if smoking rules change – UK politics live

Kemi Badenoch becomes first cabinet minister to say they will vote against smoking ban bill

Andrew Sparrow

In the House of Lords peers are now voting for the second time on the Rwanda bill. They are voting on motion B1, tabled by Lord Hope of Craighead, a former deputy chair of the supreme court. This says Rwanda would only be considered a safe country if an independent monitoring committee confirms that.

In the smoking debate the Conservative MP Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) compared supporters of the government’s bill to Roundheads. He explained:

There were so many Roundheads fighting the king many years ago in the civil war, but I would say there’s too many Roundheads at the moment in this parliament. Too many naysayers, too many people banning things.

What we need is a few more Cavaliers, a few people trying to enjoy bits of life and making those informed choices.

For that reason, I oppose this bill – although it has got some good bits about vaping – what we should be doing is fighting the next battle against vapes … rather than wasting our time fighting yesterday’s battles.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons speaker, announced today that all MPs will now be able to correct Hansard (the written record of parliament) if they make an error when they are speaking in the chamber. Previously only ministers could do that.

Chris Morris, chief executive of Full Fact, a factchecking organisation, has been campaigning for this, and he said:

The improvements to the Parliamentary correction system present a new opportunity for members of parliament to rebuild the public’s trust in politics. Full Fact is calling on all MPs to use the new system whenever they find out they’ve made a false or misleading factual claim.

Savanta has published some new polling confirming that there is widespread public support for a phased smoking ban.

Gareth Johnson (Con) is up now in the Commons, and he says the government is adopting a “completely wrong approach” to getting people to stop smoking. He says adults should have equal rights under the law. But this bill would prevent that, he says, because some adults would be allowed to buy cigarettes and some wouldn’t.

And he says no other country in the world has implemented it. Countries like New Zealand, Malaysia and Australia have considered this, but they have not gone ahead with it. He suggests it is unlikely that all other countries are wrong, and the UK government is right.

In the Commons Chloe Smith (Con) is addressing the point raised by readers. (See 5.19pm.) She says she was surprised the impact assessment for the bill said nothing about the burden it would impose on smokers who would need to carry ID all the time to prove their right to purchase cigarettes. She says the government should address this.

She says she was the minister in charge of bringing in the voter ID law for elections, and she says she did consider the practical implications of that legislation.

Here are two related questions from readers.

Has any politician (Labour or Tory) ever actually addressed John Hayes’ point about how somebody who in their 30s will in fact be able to buy tobacco (eg, will a passport/ID have to be shown, progressively as the years pass)?

This has not been discussed much, but my understanding is that that is exactly how it would operate. As Hayes might have put it, a 34-year-old wanting cigarettes would have to find a 35-year-old with ID to get them instead.

Do MPs who are questioning how shops would police age related ID also support photographic ID (which all carries dates of birth too) to vote?

If you are referring to Conservatives like Hayes, almost certainly yes. There were hardly any Tories who expressed concerns about the photo ID voting rules.

Back in the Commons Brendan Clarke-Smith (Con), who told MPs that he was opposed to the gradual smoking ban (he quoted Margaret Thatcher’s maxim, “When people are free to choose, they choose freedom”) is being followed by Sir Simon Clarke, another Tory opponent of the bill.

Normally a government MP is followed by an opposition MP in a debate, and the fact that Clarke has been called implies there are no more opposition backbenchers who want to speak. The opposition benches are more or less empty.

UPDATE: Clarke-Smith said:

The point here being the direction of travel has been about giving adults, whatever their background, to live their lives within the law as they wish, so long as they are not impinging on the rights of others.

This is the right direction and the right thing to do. As Margaret Thatcher once said, when people are free to choose, the choose freedom.

But what next? A ban on alcohol? A ban on takeaways? I would declare an interest in both of those. Both of these are bad for us when they are not done responsibly. But we are adults these are our choices, these are not the state’s choice.

We need to get back to trusting adults to make their own decisions in life. I don’t like banning things as a rule, and yes there are always cases you can make, I don’t believe the case has been made here yet.

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