Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Monday 17th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for raising the issue of theatres. This is one of those peculiar issues where “Why on earth would you do this?” is a good question. What is the problem with the present circumstances? It reminds me of the previous group. This could compromise artistic freedom for no good reason. In the previous group, I suddenly envisaged advertising and product designers being rounded up and facing two years in prison at some point. It speaks to the dangers of the state being drunk on power. It is state overreach, where it gets carried away with itself, saying, “We are righteous, on a good cause, on a mission. We are very zealous”, and suddenly all sorts of important norms get thrown out of the window.

I know that the Minister personally is very reasonable, but sometimes legislation gets carried away with itself. I suggest that this legislation needs a fine-toothed comb run through it to get rid of these disproportionate, perhaps unintended, consequences. Once that happens, it encourages others to table amendments that make a virtue of such state overreach. I completely support the previous speech, and I am opposed to Amendment 180, which is a huge hammer to deal with a very small issue that is not even a problem but somehow gets lumped in with everything else.

I am also opposed to Amendment 186, which would introduce the notion that:

“Pavement licences may only be granted by a local authority subject to the condition that smoking is prohibited”.


I remind the Committee that hospitality is absolutely under the cosh. We spend a lot of time worrying about the fate of the high street. I am involved in lots of discussions at the moment about fragmenting communities: people not going out and about and socialising. We worked hard as a society—we had to—to get people back socialising with each other after the terrible lockdown period, and even now, hospitality is finding it hard to recover.

There are all sorts of economic reasons for that, so it seems ludicrous to say that pavement licences—for sitting out, enjoying yourself, meeting your friends and so on—will be granted by local authorities only if smoking is prohibited. Individual establishments might decide to prohibit smoking; that is up to them. They are entirely free to do so, and people who smoke will not go to them. Or, if there is seating outside, a pavement licence can be granted so that in some of the space you are allowed to smoke or vape. In other words, grown-ups negotiate their way round this. I, for one, enjoy that we have found café society in coming out on to pavements, and it is really misanthropic and mean-spirited to try to stamp on that in any way. I therefore completely oppose Amendment 186. It is in the spirit of the relentless, never-ending attempt at banning, regulating and stopping.

I also think that it is a terrible insult to local authorities’ autonomy to tell them what to do in this way. It seems both ridiculously petty-minded and authoritarian at the same time. The evidence is there, and there is a notion around the dangers of smoking outside; this point relates to the previous group. I remind the Committee that Cancer Research UK says, in relation to passive smoking and smoking outside, that

“it will be important to consider how to avoid stigma or accidentally risk pushing people into smoking in their homes, which would increase second-hand smoke exposure to those living with them”.

If you take an approach where the state decides that the public square is its own, and the state imagines that it can sanitise it of all kinds of things it does not want the public to do—that is not a free society, by the way—then, ironically, there can be unintended consequences. You push people into the anti-social home, in some ways, where, if you are a smoker, you will smoke. You might as well let them outside—but, of course, some people here do not want that either.

As I have said, unless you have the courage to make smoking a criminal offence, you have to have a certain sense of proportion and allow smoking outside in some instances. In my case, that is outside cafés if the establishment allows you to.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I obviously support my noble friend Lord Howe’s amendment. However, I would like to make some remarks in opposition to Amendment 180; the principal points have already been covered by my noble friends Lord Strathcarron and Lord Johnson, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

A proposer of this amendment—the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey—outlined an experience of hers, based in a hotel. It suggested that she has perhaps confused an outdoor smoking area with a sampling room; as we have heard, there are only 25 sampling rooms. It behoves the Committee to look at the regulation this amendment seeks to revoke. It is carefully drafted and was signed in 2007 by the then Health Minister, who had brought in the Health Act 2006. The way in which the regulation works—it certainly repays careful attention—is that its first phrase reads:

“The shop of a specialist tobacconist that is being used by persons who are sampling cigars and pipe tobacco is not smoke-free for the duration of that sampling if”—


I will pause there to unpack the various conditions that have to be met in order to smoke in a sampling room. First, it has to be in a specialist tobacconist. Secondly, it has to be used by a person who is sampling cigars or pipe tobacco. Cigars, I might add, are specified in the regulation to have “the same meaning” as that in the Tobacco Products (Descriptions of Products) Order 2003, the same regulation which specifically defines specialist tobacconist.

It is not an option for any old tobacconist—or, indeed, any old public house—to set up a sampling room. That cannot be done in accordance with the regulations. The effect of the exemption is to disapply the smoke-free ban in the 2006 Act from those premises for the duration of the sampling. For the rest of the time, the ban still applies; it is not a general smoking room as existed in, perhaps, working men’s clubs prior to the ban.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am not a fan of the Bill but I think it is time for it to pass.

I want to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who asked if it is always right that the elected House must prevail. The truth is that the elected House must prevail and that yes, that is always right. We are an unelected House. We have a job to do, but at some point it has to be the elected House that decides in a democratic society.

I want to comment on the remarks made about compassion. I too disapproved of Members of the other place who tried to suggest that anyone arguing against the Bill lacked compassion. That is a ridiculous accusation and does not hold. However, I also make the point that the inference in reply—that anyone who is trying to push the Bill at this point lacks compassion—is equally low politically. It is irritating to have a situation where people start to try to compete with each other in the kindness stakes. The big political issue is that this country has lost control of its border and the asylum system is not fit for purpose. This Bill—not one that I support—is trying to tackle that. No one is doing it because they are lacking in compassion.

There are double standards here. I have heard that anyone who supports this Bill must be verging not just on the right but on the far right, does not care about anyone crossing in the boats and is actually a racist. I have heard that said by people active in political life. I ask that, for the remainder of the discussion that we have, we take each other seriously enough not just to dole out insults but to say that, if we are genuinely committed to tackling the problem of border control, this is the Bill that is on the table now and has been accepted by the House of Commons a second time, and, even if we disagree with it, we have to go along with it.

As for the people who have argued that this was not in the manifesto, the suggestion that there is no public concern about control of the borders has no finger on the pulse of any public. However, it is true that there will be elections shortly. It seems to me that people who feel strongly that this is the worst piece of legislation ever passed will stand on that in their manifesto and will commit, here and now, to overturning the Bill once it goes through. Then we will see where the votes lie and, if the Opposition become the Government, whether they stick with that and tear up the Bill. Fair dos if they do.

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to answer one question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. He asked your Lordships to ponder the position of the Rwandan Parliament and said that we must not second guess what it may do. What he forgot to mention is that Rwanda has a monist system, so a treaty entered into by the Government of Rwanda is capable of being relied upon in their domestic courts. As I previously informed the House, the Chamber of Deputies of Rwanda has ratified the treaty, and we now learn from my noble and learned friend the Minister that the Senate of Rwanda has also ratified it. The only matter that remains is for the president to agree the ratification and when that happens, the safeguards in the treaty will apply.

Shamima Begum

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Clearly, it is a very fact-sensitive evaluation on what is an appropriate matter for prosecution. The issue as to whether to deprive someone of British nationality arises in very limited circumstances, as seen in the numbers I cited earlier to the House. I would hope that all the relevant factors are taken into account when making such decisions.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Shamima Begum admitted on the BBC podcast that she willingly chose to join a barbaric, nihilistic, Islamic death cult, so I am not sure about compassion. However, the Minister said that the responsibility is to keep citizens safe. Is he suggesting that the Government cannot keep people safe when there is radicalisation happening in the UK? One reason why the public do not want Ms Begum here is that, after the Manchester Arena bombing report, it seems that the Prison Service and the secret services are not able to keep us safe. Would he say that that is our problem and we should bring her home and not wash our hands of her, not because of compassion but because of moral responsibility on our part to keep people safe, even if there are terrorists among us?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The answer is that, obviously, the primary duty of government is to keep the people safe. Parliament has seen fit to afford to the Secretary of State the power of deprivation of nationality on dual nationals, and that power has sensibly been exercised in the cases to which I have referred and on which I have given the numbers to the House. I do not believe that there is any greater moral equivalence in returning people for trial. The question that arises on the exercise of this power is the issue of national security.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I entirely agree with my noble friend.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I really hope we do not play party politics with the Bill. Earlier, it was said that the Home Secretary had created a crisis by the use of rhetoric and I just point out that, no, she did not: there is a crisis and that is that we are not controlling the borders. So we have to be very careful—on all sides, by the way. Will the Minister reflect, based on the Statement, that the very concept of modern slavery, for example, but even asylum and refugee status, are in danger of being undermined by the confusion caused by claiming that people from safe countries are fleeing war and persecution? People are becoming cynical when they hear the word “asylum”. There is a gaslighting of the British public by people who challenge them and tell them they are inhumane and not compassionate. Will he reflect on the toxicity that has been created by that, with the trending of “Nazi Germany”, “1930s” and all the rest of it? That is an insult to the British public, is it not?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

Yes. Taking the noble Baroness’s points in order, I very much heed her words: it is very important that discussion of these issues happens in a calm and measured fashion. On her second point in relation to the cynicism that is born of the abuse of the generosity of the British people towards those seeking asylum and humanitarian protection, I could not agree more. Sadly, that has led to a reputation that these measures can be abused by those who are, in reality, wanting to come to Britain for reasons of economic migration rather than for genuine protection. Abusing those measures has led to a degree of cynicism among the public. Finally, on her final point as to whether there is toxicity, there is. The best way to deal with that is to stop the boats and have a system of asylum protection that brings people directly from neighbouring countries to those from which these people come and does not allow people to jump the queue by travelling across Europe and paying the people smugglers.

Children Seeking Asylum: Safeguarding

Debate between Lord Murray of Blidworth and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

I entirely agree with the legal analysis by the noble and learned Baroness. As I hope I made clear in my earlier Answer, further money is provided—I mentioned £15,000—to each local authority in relation to the unaccompanied asylum-seeking child.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to the answers given. Having read the lurid headlines and newspaper reports, I was under the impression that people trafficking of these young people was a given. It is possible that I am confused, so can the Minister clarify that there is no evidence of what has happened or why these children have gone missing? If there is no evidence, is it not attendant on all of us in this place not to allege what we do not know to be true as though it were fact?

[Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)]

The noble Baroness is very perceptive. Unfortunately, there is a temptation to adopt the most lurid interpretation but, as I said a moment ago, there are many reasons why children go missing. There is no basis on which to make generalisations as to those reasons.