The public are overwhelmingly opposed to non-food pubs being exempted from a smoking ban. That was the upshot of the Department of Health's own consultation into attitudes towards smoking in public places. It found that more than 90 per cent of those who responded wanted a total ban in all pubs, not just in those which serve food.

Health ministers chose not to reveal that crucial piece of information when, in the Health Bill published a month ago, they announced the fudged policy which would ban smoking in some establishments while continuing to allow it in others, putting at risk the health of other customers (who admittedly can exercise their right not to patronise that particular pub) and of the staff (who have no such option).

We would not know it yet had the charity Cancer Research UK not chosen to force the publication of the study under the Freedom of Information rules.

That is a shameful double deception: first to totally ignore the findings of the survey and continue to insist, as public health minister Caroline Flint did yesterday, that polls had consistently shown the public to be opposed to a total pub smoking ban; second, to keep those findings under wraps until forced by the law to reveal them.

Cancer Research UK is to be congratulated on bringing the truth to light. The findings of the survey, and their concealment, should be born in mind by MPs when the Health Bill gets its second reading in the Commons on Tuesday.