Business and Planning Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I will speak to Amendment 4, which is in my name and those of my noble friends Lord Hendy, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lord Monks. It is an extremely modest amendment. It simply ensures that employees, trade unions and businesses are consulted and involved before a local authority determines a pavement licence application under Clause 3.

The coronavirus crisis has obliged the Government to set aside years of doubt about the value of consulting either the CBI, which they are sure is a hotbed of remoaners, or the TUC, which they viewed as the awkward squad. Since March, Ministers have consulted both sides of industry about how to keep firms afloat, how to keep workers and customers safe and how to stop supply chains seizing up.

Consultation has now moved on to lifting the lockdown safely and encouraging a confident and safe return to work. Those consultations have proved productive and surprisingly valuable. They have brought to the fore our shared interest in promoting the common good. Robust discussions have generated mutual respect. The Prime Minister’s “New Deal for Britain” speech even borrowed the phrase “build back better” from a TUC policy paper. We all seek inspiration wherever we can find it.

Business leaders accept that the trade union response has shattered the myth that the TUC spells trouble and some of my trade union colleagues have conceded that not all bosses are Neanderthals. Consultation and co-operation have necessarily become the name of the game in this crisis. Last month, the CBI elected a new president, the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and appointed a new director-general, Tony Danker, to take office in November. Britain’s three biggest unions—Unite, UNISON and the GMB—are currently electing new general secretaries. A change of guard is a good time for a fresh approach.

Amendment 4 urges the Government to grasp the opportunity to establish a new framework for co-operation at work—one that makes consultation between business and unions the norm and gives workers a voice inside their workplaces and a say in their own futures. Unions have already demonstrated in practical ways their value in helping employers to get through this crisis. I mentioned some of these in Committee, as did my noble friends Lord Hendy and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. Unions have helped and have come out the other side better placed to thrive, as have employers.

The Communication Workers Union, for which I used to work, has agreed with the Royal Mail Group a four-step process to help employees who have been categorised as extremely clinically vulnerable or as a carer of someone in that category to return to duty. In May, the Food and Drink Federation, the GMB, Unite, USDAW and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union highlighted how partnership between food and drink manufacturers, trade unions and employers has enhanced both the safety of workers and the effective running of workplaces. Ian Wright, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, said:

“Partnership between employers and unions has been crucial to continuing production over the last eight weeks.”


Britain’s biggest union, UNISON, has given fresh guidance to its workplace health and safety representatives on how to carry out inspections and investigate potential new hazards, such as Covid-19. It is also talking to employers to ensure that employees with underlying health conditions can work from home or, if that is not possible, are redeployed to roles where they are less at risk. Unite persuaded Rowan Foods to backdate sick pay to 1 June 2020 after a Covid-19 outbreak among the company’s workforce for any employees who tested positive and were isolating. It also negotiated an agreement with the 2 Sisters Food Group that all of the staff employed at its Llangefni site would be paid in full for the two-week isolation period imposed following the Covid-19 outbreak.

The GMB, Royal College of Nursing, UNISON and Four Seasons Health Care have agreed full sick pay for 15,000 care workers for any coronavirus-related absence. The long-standing partnership agreement between Tesco and USDAW is the biggest such deal in the private sector, covering some 160,000 staff. Tesco has agreed with USDAW that employees will receive contractual pay if they are following government guidelines to stay off work.

In a previous debate, the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said that a ministerially led strategy on consultation was unnecessary, yet the Prime Minister wants us to draw inspiration from President Roosevelt’s New Deal, a federal government-led strategy that promised what Roosevelt called relief, recovery and reform. Roosevelt delivered a much more ambitious programme of employee consultation and investment in jobs than the Prime Minister has in mind; sadly, this Bill reflects a lack of ambition in that respect.

I wish to press the noble Earl to explain what exactly is wrong with this amendment and what is wrong with all the trade union agreements I have cited, which make everyone—workers, managers and the public—safer in the coronavirus crisis. Why do the Government not accept that employee consultation on navigating our way through this complex and dangerous pandemic should be the norm, to be officially and statutorily promoted?

This is an extremely modest, reasonable, common-sense amendment. It does not prescribe or constrict employers in any precise method of consultation. It simply states that they should implement it in a way that they feel is appropriate. I cannot for the life of me understand why the noble Earl, who is usually very responsive to constructive points, has not contacted me or my noble friends to indicate in advance his acceptance or, alternatively, to explain that he has tabled a government amendment to achieve exactly the same result in a different way.

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as on the register. Forgive me if I do not wax as lyrical as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, about the behaviour of the trade unions—especially the teachers’ unions, which have behaved atrociously. My remarks will also be considerably shorter.

First, wearing my hat as chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, I give a warm welcome to Amendments 16 and 87, giving effect to our recommendations that the guidance be converted into SIs. I mention them now so I will not speak on them when they are reached.

While I support what my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond said and while I think that my Amendment 10, setting out a simple minimum requirement of 1,500 millimetres on the face of the Bill, is better than what the government amendment says, nevertheless, the Government have moved considerably on this measure and I am content to accept that, one way or another, there will be sufficient consideration given to the needs of disabled people when setting out tables and chairs on the pavement. My noble friend the Deputy Leader has written to us, saying that

“guidance will make clear that in most circumstances, 1,500 millimetres clear space should be regarded as the minimum acceptable distance between the obstacle and the edge of the footway.”

The word of my noble friend the Deputy Leader is good enough for me. I have looked at the wording that he circulated in paragraph 4.1 of the guidance, which says the same thing. Accordingly, I will not move my amendment.

I also suggest that if the usual channels have an urgent discussion on this, the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Holmes for the Minister to speak early and set out the changes the Government propose would be helpful. Often, when a Minister speaks early, it antagonises the House, but this may be one of those occasions when it helps the House.

Finally, let me say that if, when I am out and about, I find that the gap is not wide enough between the tables, I shall simply bulldoze through them in my armour- plated wheelchair.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of Amendment 15, which was so cogently moved by my noble friend and spoken to so persuasively by her co-signatories. In Committee, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, said:

“The Government recognise the vital importance of health and safety concerns but we do not believe that imposing a condition to prohibit outdoor smoking would be proportionate.”


He also said:

“The case is now incontrovertible that there are dangers from second-hand and passive smoking.”—[Official Report, 13/7/20; col. 1482.]


I acknowledge that the Government have come part way to meet the amendment, but I hope that, even now, they will change their mind.

I want to address the Minister’s proportionality point, especially in the light of his second statement and this Government’s plans for a smoke-free England by 2030. A new survey conducted between 15 April and 20 June 2020 for ASH and UCL has found that more than 1 million people in the UK have stopped smoking since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country. A further 440,000 smokers tried to quit during that period. Younger smokers have quit at a much greater rate than older ones: around 400,000 people aged 16 to 29 have quit, compared to 240,000 aged over 50. The rate of quitting for 16 to 29 year-olds is more than twice the rate for those over 50. This is quite unprecedented and hugely encouraging for the health of our nation. Given what the Minister has said about the dangers of passive smoking—and given that smoking-related illnesses linked to worse outcomes from Covid-19 include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, stroke and other heart conditions—is it not proportionate to want to build on the success during lockdown by restricting smoking in public areas in this way, especially as it applies only to these newly permitted outdoor spaces, as my noble friend pointed out?

As fewer people are smoking after lockdown, is it not right to do everything to attract non-smokers back to the outdoor spaces of our hard-pressed pubs, bars and restaurants by providing a smoke-free environment? We are not yet seeing customers return in great numbers—that much is clear from restaurant owners quoted over the weekend. Would this assurance not be of huge benefit in luring them back?

The Government’s amendments are welcome so far as they go, but they are very much half a loaf. I remember only too well that Forest was the principal opponent obstructing my tobacco advertising and sponsorship Bill, and I am sorry that it has been given any credence by this Government.

Amendment 11, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, is also disappointing. It is very disappointing that Labour is not supporting this cross-party amendment, especially when the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, quotes the research from UCL and ASH, and the latter is supporting Amendment 15.

I am not going to rub salt in the wound by reminding her why I had to introduce the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill in the first place in 2001. I hope, therefore, that the Government will go the whole way and ensure that the adoption of Amendment 15 will be an important staging post towards a smoke-free Britain.

[Lord Blencathra [V]]

My Lords, despite his eloquence, I am afraid that I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, since I am opposed to Amendment 15.

The Government have repeatedly underlined the point that this is emergency and temporary legislation. It should not be used as a Trojan horse to ban smoking outdoors for the anti-smoking fanatics. Even the Labour Party’s amendment is not as extreme as that and does permit for some consultation. Initially, I did not understand the ambivalence but, as my noble friend Lord Balfe reminded us in the first group of amendments, it is just indulging in rhetoric. Labour says it cannot support the government amendment, but it seems it will not vote against it. It says that they are holding the Government to account and pressing them hard, but it is not voting against it. This is the sort of irresolute, sitting-on-the-fence opposition I would have loved as a former Whip.

At the moment, smokers use outside tables—perfectly correctly, since they are banned from being inside. There is no danger whatever from passive smoking outside. Those who confess to being worried about the public health impacts of smoke inhalation should ban toxic diesel buses, which are far more dangerous than someone having a fag at a pavement table. There are legitimate arguments for and against smoking outside but, if extremists and ASH want to bring forward a ban on smoking outdoors, there must be proper consultation, proper debate and subsequent legislation—not this sneaky back-door attempt.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I mean what I say when I say that it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. He always speaks in primary colours, so we know exactly what he means. But on this occasion, I am afraid that he and I are, not for the first time, going to disagree with convivial cordiality.

I, too, am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who has made a considerable effort to come towards those of us who support Amendment 15. I am afraid that I am always suspicious of clauses in statutes—especially for temporary legislation—which are peppered with the word “reasonable”. There are so many “reasonable”s in these amendments that it gives a clue to what is in reality a key to confusion. I believe that Amendment 15, moved so clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and supported by those who signed the amendment with her, does not commit any terrible act which would put any economic interest—including that of the tobacco industry—at any real disadvantage. We need to bear in mind that it applies not to existing open-air spaces outside pubs and restaurants, because they are not newly licensed premises under the Bill, but to licensed sites.

Why is it so important? We are dealing with a double problem: not merely health damage caused by the exhalation of tobacco smoke but the real danger of the exhalation of coronavirus with that tobacco smoke, if the people smoking are suffering from coronavirus or have the necessary symptoms. The draft guidance makes it clear that many of the licensed venues will effectively be largely enclosed and partly covered—[Inaudible].