Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has spoken out against proposals to offer pregnant women shopping vouchers to give up smoking.
Researchers at the universities of Glasgow and Stirling found that 23% of mothers-to-be offered £400 in online shopping vouchers to stop smoking during their pregnancy succeeded in quitting, compared to just 9% taking part in a normal NHS programme.
The researchers suggested the initiative could be a "potentially cost effective new intervention" to cut health problems linked to smoking during pregnancy, which the study said could include up to 5,000 miscarriages a year, along with hundreds of stillbirths and infant deaths.
The annual cost to the NHS was up to £64 million for treating smoking-related problems in mothers and up to £23.5 million for the babies up to 12 months old, they said.
But Mr Clegg told LBC radio he was "perturbed" at the idea that the NHS could be asked effectively to "bribe" mothers to look after their babies' health.
"Where does this end?" asked the Liberal Democrat leader. "Do we then give people cash in hand to provide their children with a healthy regular meal? Do we give people cheques to make sure their kids go to bed on time?
"At the end of the day, in any free, open, liberal society, yes there are things we have got to try to encourage people to do, but we have got to assume that people take responsibility for their own life and for that of their loved ones.
"It is not for the state to come up with ever more exotic ways of incentivising - or worse trying to bribe - people to do what is good for themselves and their loved ones.
"It's an interesting study ... (but) I am perturbed. I don't think it's the right way forward."
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