SCOTS support plans to ban smoking in cars when children are present, and plans to change the law at Holyrood have received cross-party support.
LibDem MSP Jim Hume said the majority of the 161 responses to his consultation showed an appetite for the crackdown and said he now had cross-party support from 25 MSPs for his Member's Bill.
The position puts him at odds with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader at Wesminster, who said enforcing a ban would not work, although the House of Lords has backed a Labour Bill making it a road traffic offence, with fines or points on the licence of the driver for allowing smoking with children present.
But Mr Hume said it should be treated as a health issue, which is why his Bill has received clearance from the Holyrood authorities.
He said: "These are fair and specific proposals whose time has come."
The responses showed backing from every charity or body in the health sector and the only opponents were the tobacco industry.
Mr Hume lodged draft proposals for a Bill in May last year calling for a ban in Scotland on smoking in private vehicles while a child under 16 is present.
Motorists could be fined £60 for breaching the rule.
Consultation responses were split among 88 sent to Mr Hume and 73 completed through an online survey by the British Heart Foundation.
It showed 75% supported the plan, rising to 84% when the survey was included.
Some concern was raised about how police will be able to identify the age of passengers and offenders.
The Tobacco Manufacturers' Association and smokers' lobby group Forest said the plan is a disproportionate response to a relatively rare problem.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article