Speeches by Johnson.

“In the impact assessment, it says that 95% of people cannot give up through willpower alone. Will the Minister congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), who told me that over Christmas he has managed to give up smoking using willpower alone? This is the first time that he has…”

“Will the Minister therefore clarify something for the record or for anyone listening to proceedings? If one is suspicious that a particular retailer is selling tobacco products to children or, in the fullness of time, to those who should not be receiving it, to whom do they report it?”

“It might be good to get on record some of the figures that appear in the Government’s impact assessment regarding the association between smoking and poverty. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that people who are poor or rich have the same agency and intellectual capacity to make decisions, but the figures show that t…”

“My understanding—I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong—is that New Zealand introduced the ban, but it had not come into force, at which point the Government changed. When the Government changed, the political views of the Government changed—as we have seen happen in our country. Sadly, as a result, the law was re…”

“I understand the “polluter pays” concept that my hon. Friend is raising, but he is also talking about the morality of the situation. What does he think of the morality of producing a product that we know, more than on the balance of probabilities, will kill the person who uses it and will make them an addict and remove…”

“I do not want to put words into the mouth of the hon. Member for City of Durham, but I think she is trying to fill a gap with her new clause. The Government have said that businesses need to take reasonable steps and people need to take reasonable steps, but they have not defined those reasonable steps. Even today, it …”

“May I ask the hon. Lady if there is any evidence that in Scotland, it has reduced aggression towards retailers?”

“If one is expected to have a policy, guidance on what that policy should contain is certainly important. If one is going to be held accountable for not having such a policy in law, it is clearly not sufficient to say, “You must have a policy but we are not going to tell you what it must say or do.” It comes back to the…”

“My hon. Friend raises two points there, one of which is that the age at which someone can sell a product may not correlate with the age at which they can buy it. That is true for some products already, and I will go back to my story. When I could not get my bottle of champagne, because I looked too young, the young man…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which builds on the point I was trying to make. The issue of managing individuals addicted to smoking who come to the UK is an important one. On my last foray through Heathrow, I met a gentleman who was unhappy to find himself there; I think he had been supposed to land in …”

“Some people talk about celebrating special events with a cigar. My hon. Friend talked about new year’s eve, birthdays, the birth of a child or weddings—people might celebrate those sort of events with a cigar, although it is not as popular as it once was. It is possibly most famously associated with Winston Churchill. …”

“Thank you, Mr Dowd. My intention was merely to illustrate to the Committee the benefits of clause 1, rather than the risks, and the effect that reducing tobacco consumption will have on the environment and the public. Early on in this Committee, the hon. Member for Winchester raised the issue of pets. We have a much-lo…”

“My hon. Friend is right that the advertising restrictions have changed, because the Governments of different colours over the period have changed them. That has reduced tobacco smoking, which for people’s health is a good thing, as I am sure he agrees. I am advised that the five men who appeared as the Marlboro Man all…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for his clear answers. The purpose of the amendments is to provoke debate on the proportionality of the punishments in place and to encourage the Minister to provide further guidance on who he expects to be punished—the shopkeeper or the shop—and to consider the levels of penalty across th…”

“If I understand the Minister correctly—he can correct me if I am wrong—he is saying that the reason why the fines are different between England, Wales and Northern Ireland is that that is the way they are at the moment.”

“If Northern Ireland has decided that it wants higher fines and if, as the Minister has said, he wants to take the idea of a smoke-free generation seriously, why, given that the law as it stands in England and Wales is for him to decide—certainly in England, as he is the Minister with responsibility for public health—do…”

“The Minister has somewhat contradicted himself. On the one hand he says that he does not agree with the amendments because he wants to leave the courts free to issue a bigger fine to a rogue trader, and I have sympathy with that argument. But why, in Northern Ireland, should a rogue trader be subject to a higher fine?”

“The Minister’s response was very interesting. However, could he respond further to a couple of the questions that were asked? First, is it intentional that there is a difference in the level of the fines?”

“Thank you, Mr Dowd. That concludes my remarks on this group of amendments.”

“As the Minister is in the mood for answering questions, would he like to intervene to say whether the guidance on who specifically will be liable for the fines has been written and published?”