Baroness Walmsley (LD)

My Lords, we were talking about the issue of one person almost the same age as another person having less freedom of choice. The point is that once you are addicted to nicotine, your freedom of choice is extremely limited, as we have just heard from my noble friend Lady Northover. She gave the example of her nephew, who found it extremely difficult to give up. My late mother-in-law was in the same position. She tried to give up smoking until she died—and she died of smoking, sadly. It is very important that we have a robust system of enforcement. I look forward to hearing the Minister telling us about it, and what future measures the Government might take to reduce the number of illicit cigarettes—although I am told that it has declined by about 90% since 2000. One or two noble Lords mentioned the case in Australia. The fact is that it was a lack of robust enforcement that caused the problem in Australia. Despite that, the amount of people smoking has indeed gone down—but I agree with noble Lords who say that we need strong enforcement. When it comes to a smoker who, let us say, is my age, or who will be my age in many years’ time, who needs to provide some kind of ID, as long as it is not absolutely mandated, I am sure that some form of ID will be devised by clever people for those aged 82, and it will not be very difficult for them; they will just be able to do it, and that will sort that problem out altogether. As noble Lords might have gathered, I support the Government’s generational approach to reaching the point of a smoke-free Britain. It is a public health crisis, as is obesity, on which the Government also need to take action. Lots of amendments are coming up about various aspects that have been mentioned today, such as age-gating, which we will discuss in greater detail. This has been a very extensive and passionate debate. I must say that I find myself a little surprised that so many of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s party are so against what the Government are trying to do achieve his ambition. However, I shall leave it at that.