He was elected an MSP and was appointed education minister before resigning on health grounds in 2001.

The former MP and MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden was one of the first people in Europe to undergo a lung transplant in 1990.

He is a passionate believer that there should be a ban on smoking in public places

In Europe it is estimated that approximately 26% of all deaths in males and five per cent of all deaths in females are due to smoking.

In Scotland, where a third of people smoke, an estimated 13,000 people die each year from smoking related diseases.

A person from a deprived area lives 10 years less than one in an affluent area. A third of that difference is due to smoking.

We have made considerable progress in reducing smoking but it has now levelled off and we need a new approach; a ban on smoking in public places.

Stronger links

Smoking bans work. A ban in New York has helped reduce the number of smokers by 11% in two years. In Montana, during a six-month ban the number of heart attacks fell by almost 50%.

The first reason for the ban is to protect the workers and the public from passive smoking.

As each day passes the link between passive smoking and lung cancer becomes stronger.

The other important reason is to try to reduce the number of people smoking.

This will not be easy and do not expect improvement overnight.

We are trying to change lifestyles and such campaigns are notoriously difficult and generally have a limited effect. Smoking is the exception.

Health is determined by three factors; life circumstances, lifestyles and access to healthcare.

Social change

To change lifestyles there must also be a change in life circumstances.

Essentially this means a job. With the recent fall in unemployment we have that change in life circumstances and the ground is now fertile for the lifestyle change of stopping smoking.

It is also more likely to work because it is more than a plea to be good.

This time there is positive action, a ban, which is always more effective in helping people change.

This time we are making it difficult for people to smoke and creating a social change in which smoking is unacceptable.

The final argument for a ban is not medical but concerns social behaviour, decency and respect for others.

Why should a minority be able to subject the majority to all the effects of their bad habits which include:

• Stinking clothes

• Smoke mixed with your meal

• Disgusting ashtrays wherever you go

• Fag ends thrown out of car windows

• Pavements littered with the detritus of smoking.

There are civil liberty issues and they are all on the side of a ban - freedom from health hazards, freedom from anti-social behaviour.

There is an opportunity here for us to grasp.