Both myself and husband smoke mostly outside because i dont like my home smelling of smoke. but we are looking to foster a child/ren and we have so much love and time to give the children we have 2 children of our own and we would never harm them by smoking in there faces. i think its just a terrible shame that a child could be deprived of a loving warm safe home.

lisa kirkbride, sunderland, uk

This is wierd. So smoking parents are good enough if they are real parents but not if they are foster ones?

I thought the law was 'innocent until proven guilty' – not 'in case there is a problem, let's intervene'. Causing child illness is negligence and cruelty and any parent should have the right of self-defence if so accused. So instead of stopping new/potential parents from smoking at home, let's prosecute the ones who do it already and see if they can PROVE damage FROM SMOKE to the children concerned. Lesley Dove has posted before about suffering damage from parental smoking as a child but I have to say throughout all the raging debate about the smoking ban she is one of about three or four people who claim to have been damaged as a child. Far more people boast of the longevity of themselves parents and siblings.

Lung disease is not the inevitable result of smoking. Choosing to bring up other people's children is not a selfish action.

Belinda, Edinburgh, UK

this is an experiment in social engineering paid for by the tax payer.

They already send the children hundreds of miles away and stop contact.

Then the worst part is the social workers lying to the children saying Mummy is not coming back.

Oh when the people find out the truth of how children are being manipulated like olden days in the so called care of the state- the world will wince and cry.

How many children are taken away at birth and mother has done nothing wrong- except she herself was in the care of the state-THAT SAYS A LOT THEN.!!

There is nothing we can do as all this happens in secret.

Then years down the line society is ridden with traumatised adults who are costing us a fortune.

The system is purposely creating this as it makes money for its cronies and jobs for the boys.

Not to worry Joe Public foots the bill and is not even aware of this truth.

Sara, Manchester, uk

A step in the right direction.

Its about time that selfish smokers start to consider the health effects to others for once.

Jamie Stapleton, Worthing, UK

Are these people just brain dead.................10,000 short and they are going to make the list longer.........i don't smoke but would have rather been brought up by a caring family that does than be stuck in a care home.................................nanny state leads to a nation in decline.

Shane, Blackburn, lancs

I'm all in favour of banning smoking, but it's far, far more important for a child to be in a loving family environment than it is to be in a smoke free one. It's a question of priorities, and the physical risk from passive smoking is far less than the emotional and psychological risk from being deprived of a family. Obviously, smoker-fosterers should be encouraged to give up, and should minimise the child's exposure, but please, some sanity here, if that's too much to ask.

Jane, London , UK

It's not worth bothering to live in the UK, MGB, but you'll be sorely disappointed abroad, since the UK government's so-called nannying is nothing whatsoever compared to the so-called nannying in other countries, and those countries still manage to be 100 x more pleasant than the UK.

But that aside, what gives foster parents the right to give under-5s lung disease? They might adore the kids to death, but they might adore the kids to death, if you know what I mean.

starling, Lancaster,

When will this ridiculous adherence to PC values stop- yes the children have rights, but isnt the right to a caring loving foster parent greater han whether or not they smoke?

Can somebody please tell me why its still worth bothering to live in the UK?

MGB, Carmarthen, Wales

It's about time too! My mother smoked heavily around me and I have long-term problems with wheeziness and coughing as a result. Smoking around children is clearly a form of child abuse, in fact I would say given what we know now about passive smoking it's time social services started removing kids from smoking parents altogether if they refuse to stop smoking indoors. They should do this instead of demonising good parents as is so often the case.

Lesley Dove, Hampton, UK

Surely its about time to stop this needless adoption of PC values- yes the kids have rights, but at the expense of finding a loving caring foster parent?

Can somebody please remind me what is the point of trying to live in the UK?

MGB, Carmarthen, Wales

9 out of 10 cases of lung cancer occur in smokers. To suggest the same smoke doesn't cause cancer in non-smokers is ridiculous.

Smokers are addicted to a powerful drug, the 'choice' about whether they smoke or not has been removed.

Preventing smokers from fostering is the surest way to protect the children involved.

Simon, Lowestoft, UK

"Families" issues like these are often of interest to men as well. I felt it was a little sexist having the Families section as a subsection of Women, as it implies men would not be interested at all. This is not the case, however, and it may therefore be more suitable for Families to be moved up a level to being a subsection of "Life and Style".

Colin H, Cambridge, UK

It would appear that the The Fostering Network is more concerned about demonising smokers than protecting vulnerable children. There has been no proven case of long term illness caused by exposure to second hand smoke. But why let the facts get in the way of a prejudiced policy.

Rather than excluding 25% of the adult population from fostering why not ask them not to smoke around the children are present?

Mark M, Sothend on Sea, Essex

Exposure to smoke from passive smoking is extremely low - about the equivalent of five cigarettes per year [Panic Nation by Stanly Feldman]. That's not going to have any real impact on lung cancer. We don't know what causes asthma, but low levels of cigarette smoke don't seem to be the major culprit.

We do know that institions are far worse than foster families for bringing up children.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

I would have to ask, are the people making these rules in the best position to do so? They appear to be more concerned with the fact that the child could sue later on in life! Surely a caring family environment is the best place to rear a child, regardless of whether that family contains smokers or non-smokers. The statement from the prosmoking group Forest, is absolutely right in saying the moeve is discriminatory. As a society we are supposed to be moving forward and outlawing discrimination on all sides, yet this 1st July ban is an apartheid on smokers.

Les Corrin, Southport, England

Brilliant! There is little more disturbing and disgusting than seeing "parents" smoking in cars with children trapped in the back. One has to believe that these are people at the low end of the developmental chain, who should be kept away from any parenting activities by any means possible. When will people realise that smoking is not the once-termed "working man's pleasure" but a form of idiocy mostly undertaken by the lowest form of humanity.

crofty, Greensboro, usa

Par for the course. Who ever heard of public bureaucracies ever coming to a reasoned position ahead of one that pushes their political correctness credentials?

It's almost as if these bodies want to show how inept they are. Based on health reasons, would it not be more protective for children to be adopted into the exhaust-free environment of the Outer Hebredes?

Why is it that we continue to allow homeless children to be relocated to cities where pollutants are at their most rabied?

Edwin Thornber, Bucharest, Romania

This is clearly a policy aimed at "weeding out" the undesirable people who smoke from their list, which I feel would meet with distinctly less objections if their list of prospective foster parents was actually larger than the demand. Not that I'm on that list now, but if I was then I'd definitely be coming off of it.
If chemical safety is an issue then I hope the guidelines also exclude people whose homes have asbestos roofs / insulation or lead pipes?
Or is it just easier to beat the smokers?

Rufus, Oxford, UK

Be afraid - be very afraid. This is authoritarianism running rampant . (We old fogies used to call it by its proper name - fascism.) Next step will be to remove children from parents who smoke - all in the best interests of the child, of course.

eddie foster, mirthios, crete, greece