London, United Kingdom (AHN) – Britain’s health secretary Andrew Lansley announced during a televised interview Sunday that the coalition government is going to ban cheap alcohol, dissuade teenagers from smoking and to encourage young mothers to breastfeed their babies.

Lansley confirmed that the coalition government was preparing a range of interventions intended to reduce certain inequalities. These necessary “state interventions” are the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes, banning low-cost alcohol sales and of introduction of breast feeding areas in the workplace.

These government interventions were said to be necessary to preserve the public health as the “health inequalities” of the poorest sectors of society need to be addressed.

In the same program, Lansley’s attempt to “micro-manage” the lives of people through government intervention drew sharp criticism from former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe. “Now we have got the state actually saying to employers in a time of recession you must provide paid breaks, paid facilities, a special fridge for expressed milk and goodness knows what else for women returning to work who have decided, on their responsibility presumably, to have a child,” she commented.

She added, “It is not appropriate for the state to micro-manage our lives as they are doing.”

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