Ashley Dalton

This Bill has been put together, as I said, with collaboration across all the Governments and bearing in mind all the Government’s legal obligations under the law. All those things have been taken into account, and the Bill is able to be brought forward in that way. Our manifesto committed to delivering the smokefree generation, and we are working across all Governments to ensure that we deliver that, as well as honouring our international obligations. As a result, the Government do not consider new clause 3 tabled by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) to be necessary. That is because we are content that measures drafted in the Bill that apply in relation to Northern Ireland are consistent with our obligations under the Windsor framework, and the proposed new clause would put us in breach of international law. In the drafting of the Bill, as I have stated, we have considered all its domestic and international obligations, and it is for those reasons that the Government cannot support new clause 3. The Bill will bring about a real change by creating a smokefree generation. As we have discussed, there is no liberty or choice in addiction, and almost all smokers want to quit and two thirds wished they had never started. I started smoking at the age of 16 and decided I would stop when I was 18—I could not stop. I thought, “I know, I’ll stop when I am 21” and then it was 25, then it was when I graduated, and then it was when I had a child. At no point was I able to give up this pernicious addiction. It took a cancer diagnosis to scare me into being able to stop smoking, and I do not wish that on any of our young people. In conclusion, many of the amendments are unnecessary because the Bill already grants the Government the power to take forward the issue through the more appropriate route of secondary legislation. This is a landmark Bill: the most significant public health intervention in a generation. It strikes the right balance on the interests of public health by being proportionate and not overly burdensome. It allows the Government to bring forward the appropriate primary and secondary legislation to ensure that we can deliver a smokefree generation that protects all our children from the addiction of tobacco, a uniquely harmful substance.