Philip Davies: Ban is a smokescreen for rise of the nanny state

What perturbs me is that Conservative Ministers appear not to have grasped the concept, even though they claim to be Conservatives, that we can disapprove of something without banning it. This is just another in the long line of triumphs for the “nanny state”.

I believe that parents are much better placed to decide what is best for their children than the state is. If we want to encourage parents to take responsibility for their children, we have to give them that responsibility. We will never get parents to do that if the Government say: “Don’t worry about taking responsibility for your children, because we will make all the relevant decisions for you. You don’t have to worry about anything.” That is not something we should be encouraging.

The Conservative Party used to believe in the rights of private property, and that people could do as they pleased in their own private property. Their private vehicle is their own private property. If people wish to smoke in a car with children, that is a decision for them to take. As Conservatives, we should not interfere with that.

MPs have talked about small and confined places and about restricting the proposal to private vehicles, so why not caravans?

I know that Labour MPs are not going to ask their friends in the Gypsy community to stop smoking in caravans, so we will never have the prospect of that happening. What is the difference between a caravan and a small car? What is the difference between a small, confined flat and an open-top car? Why is it worse for people to smoke in an open-top car than in a confined flat or a caravan? Why is one much more of a danger to health than the other? This in no way reflects the fact that most car journeys are very short.

Why do Labour MPs think it is an absolute outrage and terribly dangerous for somebody’s child if they smoke in a two-minute car journey but absolutely fine for them to smoke for hour after hour in a caravan that is, in many cases, just as much of a confined space? The whole thing is absolute nonsense.

We all know where this is going to end up. The people at Action on Smoking and Health, who appear to be the only people the Department of Health listens to, are not going to hand over their company car keys when this measure gets passed — they will be campaigning for the next one, which is of course to get smoking banned in everybody’s homes as well. Once we have agreed to the principle of banning smoking in people’s private cars, how on earth can we logically say that there is a great difference regarding people’s homes? Of course, we cannot. We all know that this will end up in people’s homes and caravans, and all the rest of it.

Moreover, this is totally and utterly unenforceable. What on earth are we doing saying to the police, whose resources are already stretched, that all of a sudden this should be a new priority for them to undertake?

Have they got nothing better to do than go up as close as they can to a moving car to see whether there happens to be a small child in the back seat? Of course, this is not just about small children but all children. How on earth does the driver prove that the person in the back of the car is over 18 rather than under 18? What happens when the driver throws the cigarette away and the police have to try to prove whether they were smoking when they were pulled over? The whole thing is completely unenforceable. It is gesture politics of the worst kind, with Ministers and shadow Ministers trying to flex their health zealotry at all these health organisations and saying: “We’re tougher on these matters than the others.”

Standardised packaging – it is not plain packaging, as some people say – is also nonsense. In many cases, the standardised packaging is more colourful than the existing packaging. It is already the case that cigarettes cannot be displayed in large shops. What on earth is the point of having plain packaging for products that are already behind a counter and cannot even be seen? Again, the whole thing is complete nonsense.

All these arguments are arguments for banning smoking altogether. If people had the courage of their convictions and said: “We should ban smoking altogether”, I would at least have some respect for them, but they dare not say that is what they want to do, even though we know it is their real agenda.

While cigarettes are a legal product, brands should be free to use their own branding on the packs. Standardised packaging would simply be a triumph of the “nanny state” that would presumably soon be followed by plain packaging for alcohol, sweets, crisps, and all the foods that supposedly lead to obesity.

Once we have gone down this road for one thing, why would we not have plain packaging for everything?

We know, particularly given the current Ministers and Shadow Ministers, that that is what it would quickly lead to.

We are supposedly here to try to defend the freedoms of people in this country. This Government want to trample over every single one of those freedoms.

It makes me wonder what is the difference between having Labour or this Government in charge. I expect no better from Labour, but I did expect an awful lot better from a supposedly Conservative-led Government.

Philip Davies is the Conservative MP for Shipley who spoke in a Commons debate on smoking in cars. This is an edited version.