Clause 4 - Additional smoke-free places
Health Bill
3:45 pm
Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Health; Westbury, Conservative)
In a timely way, I will seek to do that. Such a situation would be forbidden in this Room under this legislation, and correctly so. But if that happened in a bus shelter or outside the foyer of a hospital—we are all familiar with that scenario—or in a stadium, the matter would be more contestable. People will be exposed to smoke, as we are when we walk down the street—I can inform the hon. Gentleman of that. Ambient smoke is always present.
In the amendment, I am trying to promote the notion that the smoke needs to be significant, or we might end up with a blanket ban because it could be claimed that everybody is exposed in one way or another to smoke. Technically such a claim would be correct, but the smoke would not be significant in public health terms.