Health Bill — New law against purchase of tobacco on behalf of children — rejected — 12 Oct 2009 at 20:30

The majority of MPs voted against considering a new clause for inclusion in the Health Bill, which would have added a new offence into Section 7 (Sale of tobacco, &c. to persons under sixteen) of the Children and Young Person's Act 1933, which said:[1]

  • A person commits an offence if he buys or attempts to buy tobacco on behalf of an individual aged under 18.
  • Where a person is charged with such an offence it is a defence that he had no reason to suspect that the individual was aged under 18.
  • A person guilty of such an offence is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

The discussion was partly concerned with the fact that the government had -- on the day of this debate -- claimed to have published some long awaited regulations on this matter and emailed them to members.[2]

These regulations are not on the web under draft statutory instruments for 12 October. These draft regulations were also not in the Library or the Vote office.[3] And the emails containing the draft regulations, which were in answer to this proposed clause, were sent halfway through the debate.[4]

This issue of regulations not being available even for a Parliamentary debate about them didn't make it into the press.[5]

Debate in Parliament | Source |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con0 136 (+2 tell)071.5%
DUP0 1011.1%
Independent2 2066.7%
Independent Labour1 00100.0%
Lab274 (+2 tell) 3180.2%
LDem0 47074.6%
PC0 30100.0%
SDLP1 0033.3%
Total:278 192175.8%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Claire Curtis-ThomasCrosbyLabaye
Roger GodsiffBirmingham, Sparkbrook and Small HeathLabaye
Alan SimpsonNottingham SouthLabaye
Jim McGovernDundee WestLab (minister)both

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive