Business and Planning Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure and a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. His record in fighting for public health and achieving sensible tobacco control is probably greater than that of any other Member of your Lordships’ House. It goes right back to the early 1980s, when, as a Health Minister, he was fired from Margaret Thatcher’s Government for taking a tough line on sports sponsorship and advertisements with those whom he described as the “tobacco barons”. In a blog post, he said:

“I banned smoking at the meetings I held with them, and tried to get a health warning not just on the cigarette packs, but on the cigarettes themselves. The barons resisted this; the ink, they asserted, contained substances that could damage the smoker’s health”.


I am delighted that he has put his name to this amendment; I was very pleased to do the same. I congratulate the noble Baroness on the speech she made at Second Reading and on the very persuasive way in which she moved the amendment so ably just now.

This is the latest step on the journey to the smoke-free country which Ministers say they want to achieve by 2030. It is also consistent with the approach we have adopted in your Lordships’ House since we approved a succession of tobacco control measures, going back to the early years of this century. The most important of these, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Young, was the measure to make pubs and clubs smoke-free after the free votes in 2006. There can be hardly anyone, in this House or outside, who wishes to go back to the days when pubs were full of smoke and patrons needed to change their clothes and wash their hair to get rid of the stench when they got home. Those laws were the most significant contribution to public health since the clean air laws of the 1950s and the Victorians’ improvements to the quality of drinking water.

In 2013, I was pleased to be part of a cross-party group which moved amendments to the then Children and Families Bill that were designed to protect children and help prevent them starting to smoke. Those required cigarettes and other tobacco products to be sold in standardised packaging and made it an offence to smoke in cars where children under 18 are present. By the happiest of coincidences, the Health Minister who accepted the arguments in those amendments tabled in Committee was none other than the noble Earl, Lord Howe. He will therefore appreciate how entirely appropriate it is to improve legislation such as this in the interests of public health.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, has said, this amendment enjoys significant public support. Particularly striking is the evidence from Greater Manchester. Over 70% of its population said that they wanted the areas immediately outside public buildings to be smoke-free environments. As she said, all 10 local authorities in the area support this amendment.

I should also mention a friend of mine, Ian Hudspeth. He is a Conservative councillor and chair of the Local Government Association’s community well-being board. In a message to me he writes: “As leader of Oxfordshire County Council, which supports Oxfordshire’s ambition to be the first smoke-free county in five years’ time, by 2025, I want to express my support for this amendment. It is important to ensure that public spaces where people congregate and socialise do not present a health hazard from cigarette smoke. By giving local authorities the mandate and tools to protect their residents’ health, it ensures a level playing field for businesses and demonstrates the Government’s commitment to its ambition for England to be smoke free by 2030”.

I hope that your Lordships will accept this amendment when, presumably, it is moved on Report—unless the Minister is able to indicate tonight that he is able to accept it now. I wholeheartedly support it.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to support this important amendment. We have come a long way in public health on harms from smoking and passive smoking. Our ban on smoking in public places has resulted in proven improvements in rates of heart disease among workers in such environments. As well as protecting workers in pubs, we must not put at risk the public, who have in recent years enjoyed pubs. Unfortunately, the evidence around Covid damaging the heart and lungs is rapidly mounting. We know that those with cardiovascular disease and lung disease—direct consequences of tobacco smoke exposure—have a worse prognosis and a higher post-infection morbidity.

For people’s mental health, and for the country’s economy, it is essential that venues are supported to open safely and inclusively, and to provide a pleasant experience outdoors that is as safe as possible. Commercial pressures from the tobacco industry will, of course, want to resist this. This amendment, to which I have my name, supports hospitality venues to reopen, maintains consistent messaging to decrease smoking and encourages people to enjoy going out and socialising, with mental health benefits. This amendment supports our public health gain on decreasing tobacco smoke exposure, which must not be abandoned now; it would be irresponsible to throw it away. I urge all noble Lords to think about what they will throw away if they do not support the simple measure proposed in this amendment.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

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

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I begin with a brief word about Labour’s Amendment 11, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. I am disappointed that the party which—with a bit of prodding when in government—introduced the ban on smoking in pubs has in opposition retreated from that bold approach to public health issues, and cannot support Amendment 15. This disappointment is shared by many of Labour’s noble Members. Its own amendment has been trumped by the Government’s amendment, which goes further, and which I will turn to in a moment, but I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, that more action is needed to combat smoking.

The Government have adopted the “hard cop, soft cop” approach on this issue. Last week, my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh was cast as the hard cop and was obliged to read out an uncompromising speech asserting that our amendment would lead to pub closures and job losses. Why pubs that have survived all the problems that have confronted industries so far should decide to close when given the opportunity to extend their non-smoking premises to include the pavements outside was never explained. He also said that imposing a condition to prohibit outdoor smoking would not be proportionate. Yet outdoor smoking is already banned in open-air stadiums and at open-air railway stations, because they are places where people congregate and therefore there is the health risk and the annoyance of passive smoking. It would be the same with pavement smoking.

However, it would be churlish to complain too much, because in the meantime the hard cop was replaced by the soft cop, my noble friend Lord Howe, emollient and with an impeccable public health record. He has tabled an amendment which goes a long way towards what we were arguing for, and wrote a helpful letter to noble Lords today. I pay tribute to his role in listening to last week’s debate and moving government policy forward on this issue. I know that my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, who made a personal commitment to the anti-smoking campaign in the debate last week, has also played a role.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, the government amendment does not go as far as I would like, but before turning to that, I will make one point about the guidance referred to in the noble Earl’s amendment. Given that many pubs have already made provision for smokers on their own premises—usually canopies with patio heaters—I hope the guidance will say that where this is the case, any extension to the pavement should be smoke-free, since there is already somewhere for the smokers to go.

The Government’s amendment does not go as far as I would like, and I will not repeat the arguments in favour of Amendment 15 so ably put by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and other noble Lords, last week. While none of the arguments against it have convinced me that they would be the right way forward, I recognise that given the position of the Labour Party, the cross-party alliance so skilfully constructed by the noble Baroness has gone as far as it can, and therefore I am prepared to settle for and support the government amendment. I hope that others who share my view will feel able to do the same.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, yesterday’s press release from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government stated:

“People using pubs, restaurants and cafés will soon have greater freedom to choose non-smoking outdoor areas”,


a laudable objective that is consistent with the cross-party Amendment 15, which I have signed, along with the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and which is identical to the one we debated in Committee last week. Some of your Lordships may take the view that had we not raised the issue of smoking in areas covered by pavement licences, the other amendments in this group might never have seen the light of day today. Indeed, if it had not been for the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, raising the subject at Second Reading, that would probably be the case.

As I indicated in Committee last week, our amendment enjoys strong cross-party support from the Local Government Association, which represents local councils in England and has asked the Government to make pavements smoke-free. Birmingham Labour councillor Paulette Hamilton, vice-chair of the LGA’s community well-being board, is urging your Lordships to give councils the power to extend smoke-free areas to include pavements, so that

“this alfresco summer can be enjoyed by everyone.”

She added:

“Councils have worked hard to help hospitality businesses reopen, including relaxing requirements and making changes to roads and pavements to enable pubs, cafés and bars to operate outside safely with more outdoor seating. Pavement licensing should not be a catalyst to increase smoking in public places, putting people at greater risk of ingesting second-hand smoke when they are enjoying a drink or a meal.”


This view is shared by the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council, Ian Hudspeth, whom I quoted in the debate last Monday, and who has set the laudable target of a smoke-free Oxfordshire by 2025.

On 15 July, the Welsh Government committed to bringing in new laws to ban smoking in hospital grounds and schools under the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, to

“protect the public from second-hand smoke and de-normalise smoking in the eyes of young people.”

They are on course to bring in a smoking ban for the outdoor seating areas of restaurants and cafés, which is supported by nearly two-thirds of adults in Wales, according to a survey by ASH Wales.

My final point arises from my supplementary question to the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, earlier this afternoon. Noble Lords may recall that I asked him whether today’s proposed guidance for smoke-free areas outside pubs and restaurants would be agreed with the DHSC, published before the House rises and subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Rather to my surprise, he did not answer any of these rather important questions, and later in the session, when the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked them again in the same form, she did not get a reply either. What is going on? Have the Government not yet made up their mind, or does the MHCLG refuse to acknowledge that this is a public health issue, let alone that it has anything to do with the Government’s aim to make England smoke-free by 2030? I still think that our amendment is the best of the three on offer, and I will be disappointed if the House does not agree to it this afternoon.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, Amendment 15, to which I have added my name, seems to be the best way to avoid the Government throwing away the hard-won gains in public health that smoking reduction strategies have achieved to date. There is now clear evidence of the benefits from our legislation, which has banned smoking in public places. The benefits of ending passive smoking are to the heart, the vascular system and the lungs. The strongest evidence of the health benefits of making places smoke-free is in those working in pubs. The Smoke-free Premises and Vehicles (Wales) Regulations 2020 will extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas of hospital grounds, school grounds and local authority playgrounds.