Anti-smoking groups hit out at Reid's smoking comments

Britain's health secretary John Reid has angered anti-smoking groups by saying that smoking is one of the few pleasures left for those living on council estates.

Dr Reid said that the middle classes were “obsessed” with the issue, which he added was not one of the worst problems facing poorer people.

The reformed smoker was speaking in a debate with health and patients’ groups on improvements for people with long-term conditions, the Guardian reported.

He said: “I just do not think the worst problem on our sink estates by any means is smoking, but that is an obsession of the learned middle class.

“What enjoyment does a 21-year-old single mother of three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette.”

His remarks at the Labour Big Conversation Event in south London come amid last week’s statement by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the government was considering measures to ban smoking in public spaces.

The director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), Deborah Arnott, condemned Dr Reid’s statement.

She said: “Smoking is the single greatest cause of the large difference in life expectancy between the rich and the poor. If John Reid’s contribution to the white paper on smoking is let the poor smoke, then his policy on obesity must be let them eat cake.

“Any Government that cares about improving public health must act to protect workers from second-hand smoke. Second-hand smoke kills more poor people than any other group in society."

Conservative Shadow Health Minister Andrew Lansley accused Mr Reid of sending out “mixed smoke signals”.

“It is impossible to see how the government can promote a consistent public health strategy when with one hand it is funding the British Heart Foundation’s ad campaign against smoking and with the other John Reid makes remarks like these,” he said.

“It is yet another illustration of the confusion and mixed messages which have characterised the government’s public health policies, not just for smoking but also for obesity.”

A spokesman for Dr Reid said that the debate focused “99 per cent of the time” on long-term health care and was not about smoking in public spaces. He added that no decision had been made yet on whether to ban smoking in public.

Responding to a call for a public ban on smoking during the debate, Dr Reid added: “Be very careful, that you do not patronise people because sometimes, as my mother used to say, people from those lower socio-economic backgrounds have very few pleasures and one of them is smoking. I worry slightly about the unanimity of the middle class professional activists on this.”

Ministers are considering whether to ban smoking in public, allowing councils to impose suspensions, or to leave the law unchanged.