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Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what analysis he has made of the EU Commission's report DG (SANCO)/8529/2002 on animal and public health controls in Brazil; what assessment he has made of the risk to public health in the United Kingdom from the import of Brazilian meat; and if he will make a statement. 
Ms Blears: The European Commission has so far made no proposals to permit imports of pig meat from Brazil further to this report. If such a proposal were made, we would expect the shortcomings identified in the report to have been addressed before the United Kingdom could support it.
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to maintain the benefits of bulk procurement in the Public Health Laboratory Service when laboratories are transferred to the National Health Service. 
Ms Blears: We plan that the Purchasing and Supply Agency (PASA) should assume responsibility for bulk procurement during 20032004, as current contracts are completed. Before these transfers, PASA will be putting in place bulk procurement procedures which will be designed to provide equivalent benefits to the current arrangements for all the national health service microbiology laboratories.
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many (a) local authority residential places, (b) independent sector residential places, (c) national health service long-stay geriatric and psycho-geriatric beds and (d) independent sector nursing home places there were in (i) 1973, (ii) 1980, (iii) 1990 and (iv) 2000. 
Reliable data on the number of residential home places for the years prior to 1980, and nursing home places prior to 1982, are not readily available. Information on national health service long stay mental illness beds is not available for 1973 and 1980.
|As at 31 March||Residential home places(54),(55)Local authorityIndependent sector||NHS geriatric beds(56)||NHS elderly long-stay mental illness beds||Nursing home places(54),(57) independent sector|
(55) Data for 1980 do not include places for the client group "other".
(56) Geriatric beds include long and short-stay beds. Long-stay beds are not collected as a separate category.
(57) Nursing home places include beds in general and mental nursing homes, private hospitals and clinics.
(58) Number of independent nursing home places are given as at 31 December 1982. Reliable data for years prior to 1982 are not available.
(59) Data not available
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David Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimates he has made of the number of people who have died in each of the last five years in England and Wales as a result of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. 
The Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) in its 1998 Report concluded that, "exposure to environmental smoke is a cause of lung cancer and, in those with long-term exposure, the increased risk is in the order of 20 to 30 per cent. The numbers of people so exposed are not known precisely, but an estimate would suggest about several hundred extra lung cancer deaths a year are caused by exposure to passive smoking".
SCOTH also concluded: "Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is a cause of ischaemic heart diseases and if current published estimates of magnitude of relative risk are validated, such exposures represents a substantial public hazard".
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many people have died in each of the last five years as a result of passive smoking; and what measures are being taken to reduce exposure to passive tobacco smoke. 
The Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) in its 1998 Report concluded that, "exposure to environmental smoke is a cause of lung cancer and, in those with long-term exposure, the increased risk is in the order of 20 to 30 per cent. The numbers of people so exposed are not known precisely, but an estimate would suggest about several hundred extra lung cancer deaths a year are caused by exposure to passive smoking."
SCOTH also concluded: "Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is a cause of ischaemic heart diseases and if current published estimates of magnitude of relative risk are validated, such exposures represents a substantial public hazard."
We are working closely with the hospitality trade to implement the Public Places Charter, designed to provide customers with clear information on the type of smoking policy operating in a particular establishment and allow them to make an informed choice.
We are also be increasing the visibility of health messages highlighting to smokers the risks environmental tobacco smoke presents. This is through regulations to transpose into UK law the European Union Directive on the Manufacture, Presentation and Sale of Tobacco Products. These regulations require
tobacco products to carry larger and starker health warnings, on both the front and back of the packet. The dangers of passive smoking are highlighted in two of the new warnings, which include "Smoking seriously harms you and others around you" and "Protect children: don't make them breathe your smoke." The contents of tobacco smoke are also highlighted in a warning saying, "Smoke contains benzene, nitrosomines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide" .
We are encouraging all employers to introduce smoke-free work places. All of the Department of Health's headquarter buildings will be completely smoke-free by 31 March 2003 and we are funding local tobacco control alliances across England to carry out projects in close co-operation with local employers to tackle passive smoking and to increase the number of smoke-free environments. These projects vary in nature from the production of smoke-free guides to pubs and restaurants to the provision of advice and support to managers wishing to introduce policies. We hope that many will be suitable for national application.
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many regular tobacco smokers there are (a) in the UK and (b) in other Council of Europe countries; and how many there were in each case in 1980. 
Ms Blears: The estimated number of smokers in the United Kingdom is shown in table 1. The available data on smokers in other Council of Europe countries as published by the World Health Organisation are shown in table 2.