Member

I want to talk mainly about new clause 2, which has been tabled in my name. In a rare example of things genuinely being as simple as they seem, the new clause would simply ban the use of plastic filters in cigarettes. The debate today will largely focus on the public health benefits of banning smoking—improving cancer rates, for example—and rightly so, and I have to be very clear that banning plastic filters will do absolutely nothing for public health. It will, however, make a great deal of difference to the thousands of my constituents who bathe or swim in the Solent, and to the marine life there.