Truss claims ‘health police’ will push for other bans if smoking rules change – UK politics live

Rishi Sunak has still not spoken with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu around 24 hours after saying he would do so “shortly”, No 10 said this afternoon.

As PA Media reports, at the afternoon lobby briefing a Number 10 spokesperson said: “We are still discussing scheduling, working out with diaries.”

She rejected the suggestion that the delay was “embarrassing” and made Britain “look weak on the world stage”. She said:

I don’t think so. I think we saw the UK participate in a coalition over the weekend.

The prime minister has regularly spoken with Netanyahu. It does take time to schedule these with diaries but there was a suggestion earlier this morning that that meant that the UK’s view was not being relayed or we hadn’t had an opportunity to do that.

That is obviously incorrect. Our position is very clear, it’s the same as the US and we obviously have contact with the Israeli government through many different channels.

In the Lords Vernon Coaker, a Labour Home Office spokesperson, is speaking. The first motion being debated is one that says the bill should include an opposition provision saying it must be enacted in a way compatible with domestic and international law.

Coaker says, in countries like Ukraine, the UK insists on international law being upheld. But if the government passes a law saying it is allowed to ignore international law, its integrity will be undermined, he says.

As an example of the harm this can do, he says the prime minister of Pakistan cited the Rwanda bill as a reason why he was entitled to send migrants back to Afghanistan.

And he says the Rwandan state airline will not fly asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda because it is concerned about the potential damage to its reputation.

In the House of Lords peers have just started the latest round of “ping pong” with the Commons over the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

When the bill first went through the Lords, peers inserted 10 amendments that were subsequently removed by MPs. When it went back to the Lords, peers voted, in effect, to put seven of them back in. They were removed by the Commons yesterday.

Today peers are going to have another go at getting MP to “think again” (as they tend to describe their role). Here is the list of new amendments up for debate.

We are expecting up to seven votes, ending early evening. The amendments cover various issues and include a restriction saying the bill cannot not come into force until an independent monitoring committee has said Rwanda is a safe country, and another saying people who have worked for the British army in countries like Afghanistan should be exempt from deportation to Rwanda.

Britain’s households will endure a second year without an improvement in their living standards in 2024 as the effects of high inflation take time to abate, the International Monetary Fund has revealed. Larry Elliott has the story here.

Liz Truss, the former Tory PM, is speaking now.

She says she is not opposing the bill because she loves smoking. She goes on:

The reason I’m speaking today is I’m very concerned that this policy putting being put forward is emblematic of a technocratic establishment in this country that wants to limit people’s freedom. And I think that is a problem.

She says the idea that the government “protect adults from themselves is hugely problematic”.

She claims she spends a lot of time campaigning in her constituency, and has never come across anyone demanding a gradual smoking ban.

The idea is being pushed by officials, she says (repeating a line she has used in interviews).

She says, when Thérèse Coffey was health secretary (when Truss was PM), officials in the health department tried to get her to adopt this plan. Coffey refused, she says.

Truss goes on:

My real fear is that this is not the final stage that the health police want to push … They want to be able to make their own decisions about what they eat, what they drink, and how they enjoy themselves.

Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, intervenes, and asks Wes Streeting if Labour is in favour of a consultation on how to implement the vaping restrictions in the bill. Earlier, in response to a previous intervention, Streeting was evasive on this point.

Streeting says it is absurd that he is being asked about consultation policy when he is not in government.

Atkins asks again. Streeting says she is just trying to curry favour with Tory MPs by attacking him. But he says the government is perfectly able to carry out a consultation, and he will support them in doing that.

Vicky Ford (Con) intervenes. She says this is a serious question. She says there are adults who want to switch from smoking to vaping, but who don’t like the taste of flavourless vapes. If the bill bans flavoured vapes (the ones most attractive to children), they might not switch.

Streeting says that is a sensible point. She says government needs to get the regulation right. But he says there is “absolutely no excuse whatsoever” for flavoured vapes “deliberately and willfully designed to addict young people”.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is speaking now. He starts by saying that in the early 2000s smoking was common in pubs. But Labour banned that, and it made a huge difference. He says:

The last Labour government banned smoking in public places. And it made an enormous impact on the health of our nation.

Just the following year, there were 1,200 fewer hospital admissions for heart attacks. According to the British Medical Journal, since 2007 the number of people who smoke has been cut by almost a third.

Our understanding of secondhand smoke grew and with it the culture changed around where it was acceptable to smoke. Even at home, people went outside to smoke instead of smoking in front of their children. A study in Scotland found that while hospital admissions for children with asthma were increasing 5% a year before the smoking ban, in the three years following Labour’s legislation, admissions were down by 18%.

He says Labour needed no persuasion to back this legislation.

And he claims this is the latest example of the government stealing a Labour idea. He proposed a gradual ban on smoking like this in a Times interview last January, he says.

I said that it was time for a New Zealand style smoking ban. I argued that a progressive ban would have a transformational impact on the health of individuals, the health of the nation as a whole and also on the public finances.

(In fact, although Streeting did float the idea more than a year ago, he did not firmly commit to it. He said he would consult on whether it was feasible.)

Streeting says he agrees with Liz Truss; this is an unconservative measure. (See 10.44am.)

He goes on:

This is absolutely an unconservative bill. It is a Labour bill and we’re delighted to see the government bring it forward.