Member

My final point is on liberty. There is a tendency in modern politics to clamour for a ban to achieve social benefits in preference to seeking other solutions, notwithstanding the impacts on personal liberty and freedom of choice. The generational smoking ban significantly erodes personal freedom and choice—so much for the Government that would tread more lightly on our lives. The ban imposed by this Bill is simply not justified. It will have absurd consequences. Why, a few years hence, should a 42 year-old be able to buy cigarettes but a 41 year-old cannot? If an 18 year-old can drive a car, buy alcohol, join the Army and have already voted for two years if this Government get their way, surely by the age of 21 they can decide whether they wish to buy what will still be a legal product. The state should not remove for ever that freedom to choose simply because a person happens to have been born on or after 1 January 2009. I beg to move.