ACCORDING to Redditch MP Karen Lumley, making a child inhale what she herself called “dangerous second-hand smoke” is as she puts it, “an unnecessary private matter with which the state should not be concerned”. So let’s take it that the state should not be concerned when it foots the bill to treat the child’s damaged lungs in the years to come, shall we Karen?

Mrs Lumley is a “strong believer in personal responsibility” and in a act of misplaced human kindness “would not like to see ordinary people being criminalised in this way”.

In other words it would seem, given her comments, she couldn’t care less if a child has to suffer, breathing in a confined space, the deadly toxins we know to be present in cigarette smoke, preferring instead not to risk upsetting ordinary people and the possibility of losing one or two votes no doubt.

“Furthermore a ban”, according to clueless Karen,”would be wholly unworkable”.

Well you don’t need a degree in rocket science to know if a child smells of smoke after having been in a car, someone in that car had been smoking, so that should be enough to allow the police to be called. That in my opinion would be very workable.

Chris Harrison Redditch