Business and Planning Act 2020 (Pavement Licences) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

One hundred per cent smoke-free seating is easy to understand, simple to implement and popular with the public. Unfortunately, the Government’s compromise did not meet any of those tests. Revising the regulations to require 100% smoke-free pavement licences would have been a positive step towards delivering the Government’s vision of a smoke-free 2030 for England. Sadly, that opportunity has been missed this year, which is why I have tabled this amendment. Let us hope that we have another chance soon to get this right. I hope your Lordships will agree with me and vote for this amendment if I seek to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I have received requests to speak from the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Blake. I will call them in that order.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, which he very effectively introduced. The Government claim that they want the UK to be smoke free by 2030, but they have a funny way of going about this.

Years back, despite the efforts of the tobacco industry, working cross party we introduced into the United Kingdom the provision that public places such as pubs and restaurants should be smoke free. Was that not a transformation? It made sense during the pandemic that pavement licences should be granted, as people needed to be more distant from each other. Most people welcomed these new arrangements. Pavements were often widened to accommodate them. Does the Minister agree that the key thing to remember here is that these areas are simply extensions of the areas inside and need to be smoke free as well—for people’s health, for them to be family-friendly and to move closer to the smoke-free aim that the Government apparently have?

We ran into all the usual tobacco industry-briefed objections last year and—surprise, surprise—it turned out that the noble Lord’s department had not properly consulted the Department of Health on the matter and had to scurry to do so. Has it fully done so this time?

The objections from the tobacco industry are so familiar to the Department of Health. The noble Lord, Lord Young, took these objections apart last week. I wish we had a stronger weapon than an amendment to an SI that was going to be just slipped through, having been debated in Grand Committee, where noble Lords cannot vote and would knock out the whole SI if we did. This SI will barely have been registered by most in your Lordships’ House. Thank goodness the noble Lord, Lord Young, noticed and flagged it to the rest of us.

If this amendment is lost, the Minister should not take that as the will of this House. I am fully confident that if and when we debate this in legislation, there will be overwhelming cross-party support in this House for helping to tackle the terrible scourge of smoking. The department should be very wary of the briefings and influential lobbies that push it in another direction. I hope I do not hear very familiar objections voiced by the Minister in a minute. On these Benches we strongly support this amendment and are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for tabling it. I hope he calls a vote.