The smoking ban which begins on 1 July is the most recent in a line-up of contentious government actions over the past few years. We have seen warning signs on cigarette packs get bigger, tobacco advertising banned, and limitations put on junk food advertising aimed at children. Food products now carry labels about their nutritional content and there are minimum standards for school meals.

There are many who throw up their hands in horror at these changes, seeing them as an authoritarian intrusion of the government into the lives of individuals – the actions of a ‘nanny state’. In this vein, in a recent interview with the Guardian, the artist David Hockney rejected the no-smoking law as ‘the most grotesque piece of social engineering’ introduced by ‘mean-spirited and dreary people’. Non smokers – 75 per cent of the adult population – respond that they can finally enjoy visiting public venues without breathing in cigarette smoke and returning home reeking. Public health specialists point to evidence from the US that smoking bans help smokers who want to, to smoke less or even quit, and that the respiratory health of people working in formerly smoky venues improves.

This debate over the smoking ban is just the latest version of an ongoing political discussion about where government authority stops and individual responsibility starts. Regulations we now take completely for granted sparked similarly fierce controversy in their time. The first British Public Health Act, passed in 1848, for example, gave local government powers over water and sewage systems and was opposed for being ‘paternalist’ and ‘despotic’. For one newspaper ‘a little dirt and freedom’ was ‘more desirable than no dirt at all and slavery’. Who now would query legislation ensuring we have clean water or a sewage system?

Similarly, when the government made wearing car seatbelts mandatory in 1983, some MPs rejected this as ‘paternalism run rampant’ restricting ‘freedom of choice’ for drivers. But the new law meant that seatbelt use jumped from 38 per cent to 93 per cent for drivers and front seat passengers. Road safety organisations believe that this prevented 50,000 deaths and 590,000 serious casualties. The savings made as a result of these avoided deaths and injuries – in terms of medical and emergency care, lost economic output and loss of life and injury – is estimated at £163bn. Who would argue against this now?

There is plenty of evidence to show that government taxation or regulation helps people live healthier lives. Many academic studies show that increasing the price of tobacco or alcohol and banning advertising for these products means that people smoke and drink less. For example, one study looking at 17 countries over a 13-year period found that those with total bans on advertising beer, wine and spirits had lower alcohol consumption levels, lower mortality due to liver cirrhosis and fewer motor vehicle fatalities than countries that only banned spirit advertising or allowed full advertising. And a survey of tobacco advertising bans in 102 countries showed that comprehensive media bans reduced consumption.

So it is clear that government interventions have considerable individual and social benefits – results which arguably mitigate the small limitations on individual freedom and choice. Governments cannot compel people to live healthier lives, but they can encourage better choices through regulation, taxation and advertising codes. These may restrict individual choices a little, but they also make it easier for individuals to make healthier choices if they wish.

Gordon Brown as prime minister can choose to stand above accusations of nannying and use the government’s power to create frameworks which encourage healthier behaviour. This will mean rethinking our current alcohol strategy and taking sterner action around taxation, advertising, and consumer information. And it means reinforcing the no-smoking message – the smoking ban on 1 July is just a start, but information campaigns, high tobacco taxes, and easily accessible cessation services will still be essential if we are to reap the health benefits of the new law.