My Lords, I have enormous sympathy for the case made by my noble friend Lord Holmes and very much hope that the Government respond as positively as they can.
The background to my Amendment 459, to which Peers from other parties have added their names, is the arrangements made during the pandemic to support the hospitality industry. In the interests of progress, not all four of us will be speaking, and it is good to see today’s Marshalled List down to a mere 68 pages for this last day of our debate. Noble Lords may recall that during the pandemic, when it was not possible to
go into enclosed premises such as pubs, arrangements were made to grant pavement licences. When the Business and Planning Bill, which introduced this concession, came before the House in 2020, I added my name to a cross-party amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, saying that a condition of licence would be that outdoor seating areas were required to be 100% smoke-free, paralleling the arrangements inside the premises.
Noble Lords across the House supported that amendment, but sadly it was not accepted by the Government, who instead inserted a requirement in the legislation that
“the licence-holder must make reasonable provision for seating where smoking is not permitted”.
Amendment 459 would reintroduce the requirement for all pavement licences to be smoke-free, which was the view of your Lordships’ House three years ago. This would contribute to the Government’s ambition to make England smoke-free by 2030—an ambition we are currently on track to miss by nine years, according to Cancer Research UK. The current temporary requirements, which are being made permanent in this Bill, would mean that councils have two options on smoking: to implement the national condition to provide some smoke-free seating, or to go further and make 100% smoke-free seating a condition of licence at local level.
Since then, two-thirds of the public, polled in 2022, did not think that the current legislation went far enough. They wanted smoking banned from the outdoor seating areas of all restaurants, pubs and cafes. Fewer than one in five opposed such a ban. That was a large sample, of more than 10,000 people, in a survey carried out by YouGov for Action on Smoking and Health.
Some councils are already doing what the public want, with 10 councils in England introducing 100% smoke-free requirements. These are a mixture of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem-led councils in counties such as Durham and Northumberland, cities such as Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, unitary authorities such as Middlesbrough and North Lincolnshire, and metropolitan boroughs such as North Tyneside, South Tyneside and the London Borough of Brent. Therefore, in response to the point about practicality made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, practicality has already been well established by those local authorities.
When we initially tabled our amendments, the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to Manchester City Council, the first council to introduce the requirement for pavement licences to be 100% smoke-free, warning it that this would damage local hospitality businesses and could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs. We do not know whether that letter had the approval of Health Ministers. However, the experience from Manchester and elsewhere shows exactly the opposite: that these bans have proved popular with the public, leading to high levels of compliance, and have not been shown to cause any decrease in revenues. At the time, I reluctantly agreed to the Government’s decision to include the current smoke-free seating requirements, which, while better than nothing, do not go far enough. The current system is not only much more complicated to implement than a blanket ban; it ensures that non-smokers and
children continue to be exposed to tobacco smoke, which is both toxic and unpleasant. Of course, those who work for these establishments cannot go elsewhere and will continue to be exposed to smoke.
The Local Government Association of which, uniquely, I am not a vice-president, supports our amendment for 100% smoke-free pavement licences on the basis that
“it sets a level playing field for hospitality venues across the country and has a public health benefit of protecting people from unwanted second-hand smoke … If smoking is not prohibited, pavement areas will not become family-friendly spaces”.
That is why Dr Javed Khan’s independent review of smoke-free 2030 policies, commissioned by the Department of Health and published last year, recommended that smoking be prohibited on all premises, indoors and out, where food or drink is served, as well as a ban on smoking in all outdoor areas where children are present. This 100% smoke-free pavement seating has strong cross-party support from Peers across this House. When the regulations were extended in 2021, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, tabled an amendment to regret that the regulations were not revised to take account of the evidence of the benefits of 100% smoke-free pavement licences. That amendment was agreed by 254 votes to 224.
Last year, the Government announced several new tobacco control measures and said that in place of the long-promised tobacco control plan to deliver a smoke-free 2030, tackling smoking would be core to the major conditions strategy currently in development. The measures announced today are welcome but fall far short of the comprehensive approach that Dr Khan made clear was essential if we are to achieve a smoke-free 2030. When my noble friend sums up, can she confirm that the Government intend to bring forward further measures to reduce smoking in the upcoming major conditions strategy? We should now take this opportunity, provided by this amendment, to move towards implementing Dr Khan’s recommendations for all hospitality venues to be smoke-free indoors and out—a small but important step towards a smoke-free 2030.