A BAN on smoking in housing with children could help bring about “real change” by cutting their exposure to preventing youngsters second-hand tobacco smoke, an expert has said.

Writing in the BMJ’s Tobacco Control, University of Stirling’s Professor Sean Semple argues that while present smoking bans in enclosed public spaces had been effective, there remained a “significant gap in the protection of children’s health” from smoke at home. 

Small rooms and poor ventilation increase the impacts of passive smoking on children, such as respiratory infections and impaired lung development, he said.