David Nuttall MP: Encouraging trends for smoking, alcohol and drug abuse

David Nuttall is Member of Parliament for Bury North.  Follow David on Twitter.

Even despite the valiant efforts of Great Britain’s Olympians, good news is in short supply these days, so when it does come along we should do everything in our power to nurture it and help it grow. This is particularly true when the news in question involves weaning future generations off smoking, alcohol and drug abuse.

A recent publication by the Health and Social Care Information Centre on smoking, alcohol and drug use among young people in England revealed that in 2011, 25 per cent of children said they had smoked at some time, compared to a shocking 53 per cent in 1982.

We now have the lowest percentage of children saying they have smoked since these annual reports were first published. The number of 15 year olds regularly smoking was 11 per cent which is lower than the target announced in the Government’s 2011 Tobacco Control Plan.

David Nuttall MP: 84% of us have never had a chance to vote on EU membership. Let's change that.

David Nuttall is Conservative MP for Bury North and it his backbench motion for a multi-option referendum that will be debated in the House of Commons today.

At a time when people pick up their phones and spend their own money voting week in week out to keep their favourite contestants in programmes like Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor, it will baffle some that the Government is so keen to prevent them having their chance to vote on Britain’s future relationship with the European Union.

Almost two-thirds of the United Kingdom electorate have never even had the opportunity to vote on this issue.  The House of Commons Library has calculated that the estimated number of those alive today who voted ‘yes’ back in 1975 is approximately 8 million.  This represents just 16% of the current voting-age population – leaving a staggering 84% who have never voted in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU.  If I was a betting man, I would say that it would be worth a punt on the fact that some of those who voted ‘yes’ have since changed their minds too.

I have secured a debate today on a motion that would enable a referendum to be held that would give voters a choice as to whether we carried on as we were with our current relationship with the EU, came out of the EU altogether or re-negotiated our terms of membership.

My personal opinion is that Britain would be better off out of the European Union – to paraphrase William Hague’s well known position: I want to be in Britain and run by Britain.  However, this debate is not about my views at all. It is about what millions of my fellow countrymen and women want.  I am proposing that the referendum would have 2 options to stay in and 1 to come out. The debate about the rights or wrongs of our membership is for another day – tomorrow’s debate is simply about Parliament giving voters up and down the country the chance to have their say.