It is against the law to smoke in an enclosed public place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and from 1 July the same will apply in England.
The idea is to encourage smokers to quit and to protect non-smokers from the harm of secondhand smoke.
Up to 17,000 children are admitted to hospital in the UK each year as a result of the effects of second-hand smoke. The World Health Organisation cites passive smoking as a cause of bronchitis, pneumonia, coughing and wheezing, asthma, middle-ear infection, cot death, and possibly cardiovascular and neurobiological impairment in children.
Children's exposure to second-hand smoke has halved since the 1980s but is still significant. About 42 per cent of children live in homes with at least one smoker, and an ICM Research poll found that nearly half of all adults continue to smoke in a car when children are present, while almost a third smoke in the same room as children.
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