Stockton North MP Alex Cunningham was instrumental in the campaign to ban smoking in cars. As the new law comes into force he explains what made him act

“I WOULD ban smoking in cars where children are present. I would do that for the protection of children. I believe in protecting children. I would see it as a child welfare issue.”

These were precisely my feelings when I introduced the Smoking in Private Vehicles Bill to Parliament in June 2011. My thoughts have not changed in the period since and, almost four and a half years on, I am delighted that the day has finally come when life will become healthier for hundreds of thousands of children throughout England and Wales.

However, these were not my words. While I could hardly have put it better myself, these were instead the sentiments of the then-Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health, demonstrating her personal support for these changes.

But despite that view, it took several attempts to get legislation on the Statute Book before the Government realised that despite strong opposition amongst Conservative MPs, they would lose a vote on the issue so adopted it as a clause to the Children and Families Bill.

As a parent and grandparent, research shown to me by the British Lung Foundation revealing that almost half a million children in the UK are exposed to second-hand smoke in cars each and every week really hit home. If we take just a moment to think about this, the gravity of the situation becomes clear.

Smoking just a single cigarette in a car can result in concentrations of smoke that are more than ten times greater than would have been found in pubs up and down the country before England began the rollout of smoke-free laws in 2007. This second-hand smoke is made up of over 4,000 chemicals – more than 70 of which are known to cause cancer.

A review by the British Medical Association’s Board of Science concluded that there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke for children. Adverse effects can be found even at low levels of exposure, reaffirming the belief that subjecting young people to second-hand smoke is unequivocally bad for their health and wellbeing.

To put this into context, exposure to second-hand smoke results in 300,000 GP visits annually, and treating the effects of passive smoking in children costs the NHS £23 million. In the North East alone, some 13,000 young people require hospital or GP treatment every year after breathing in smoke.

But the risks that breathing this toxic cocktail exposes our children to, and the longer-term damage and suffering this inevitably causes, cannot be measured in pounds and pence or by the number of hospital appointments. As a civilised society, we have a responsibility to ensure that any such risk is minimised.

It is for precisely these reasons that, exactly 1,562 days ago, I introduced proposals under the “ten minute” rule to extend smoke-free regulations by making it illegal to smoke in cars when children are present and bringing us into line with such countries as Australia, Canada and the US.

But it’s not just Parliamentarians who support such a ban. The vast majority of people understand that cigarette smoking is harmful to our health, particularly that of our children, and most would not expose children to smoke in a vehicle.

Surveys have repeatedly found that significant numbers of adults, both non-smokers and smokers, support such a ban. Here in the North East, some 88 per cent of adults were shown to back these measures, outnumbering those opposing a ban by fourteen to one.

I was therefore thrilled that the changes I proposed were backed so strongly by health charities and professional bodies. I have been delighted to work closely with organisations such as the British Lung Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Action on Smoking and Health, the British Medical Association, the British Heart Foundation and Fresh in the NE to see these measures enacted – albeit work over a longer period than I had hoped.

I’m personally delighted to have got this ban into law but, much more importantly, it is a milestone in the fight to prevent our children being exposed to tobacco smoke.

This, however, is a fight that is far from over and these regulations are only a single part of the wider solution that is required.

Soon we’ll also see the introduction of standard packaging for tobacco products which will render them less attractive to young people, but the work goes on to win support from the public for further measures like a ban on smoking in caravans and motorhomes whilst serving as accommodation. This is almost equally as dangerous for children.

Others have spoken of bans on smoking at school gates and in other public places like parks where children see it happen. We are on a journey and, if we can continue to make the case, the public will back further change and our children will be all the healthier as a result.