THE Government’s White Paper on public health unveiled by the Health
Secretary, John Reid, on Tuesday, sets out measures to improve the fitness and
well-being of the population in England. It tackles obesity, alcohol abuse and
sexually transmitted diseases. Most attention, however, has focused on a
proposed ban on smoking. The ban is partial, and Mr Reid has attracted
criticism from both sides: those who say that this infringes upon individual
freedom, and those who say that the proposed ban — in the workplace and in pubs
with kitchens by 2008 — does not go far enough. The medical establishment has
expressed its disappointment at the ban’s limits.
The issue of passive smoking has galvanised Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and
now England. An estimated 42 per cent of adults and children are exposed to
tobacco smoke at home, and 11 per cent at work. Medical researchers put the
death toll from passive smoking at about 1000 a year. Nevertheless, these new
measures are primarily about persuading smokers to give up. "Today, 26 per cent
of the UK smoke," said Mr Reid. "We will take another two million off that
figure in five years." But he also says: "We take people’s freedoms very
seriously here."
Just as the Government is fearful of being charged with "nanny-statism", so
the Church has tried to avoid anything to which the label "Puritan" might be
attached. It is a curious historical quirk that the movement most associated
with individual freedom of conscience was also responsible for imposing tight
restrictions on those freedoms. This stemmed, in part, from a belief in the
absolute rightness of a course of action (or more usually, the absolute
wrongness of another); more significant, though, was the puritanical belief in
being able to exercise complete control over the citizenry. At most times in
our history, those in government have been more realistic about the extent of
their powers, and have tempered their laws to what can readily be enforced.
Similarly, a second and, some would say, more authentic strain in Christianity
appeals to temperance, which in the New Testament is referred to as "moderation"
or "sobriety". St Augustine wrote: "To live well is nothing other than to love
God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, and with all one’s efforts; from
this it comes about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted (through
temperance)."
Cigarettes, alcohol and junk food continue to be popular because they are
enjoyable. The death toll from smoking-related disease is vastly too great (an
estimated 86,500 a year). Nevertheless, if the dangers of passive smoking can
be eradicated, the Government is right to be cautious about imposing its view
of living well on the public, however well argued it might be.