Clause 6 - No-smoking signs
Health Bill
12:45 pm
George Young (North West Hampshire, Conservative)
I think that this is the appropriate point at which to ask a general question about the clause, which creates a duty to display no-smoking signs. The clause makes sense in the narrow context of the Bill, but a rather awkward issue arises if one stands back and puts the Bill into perspective.
The Bill is a stage on a journey, at the beginning of which smoking was the majority activity and was permitted everywhere. At the end of the journey is a presumption that smoking is not a permitted activity and that non-smoking is the norm. We are moving down that path, and as we do so, we preclude smoking as an activity from more and more places. It therefore makes sense to indicate where smoking is banned as one goes down that path.
There comes a point, however, when the see-saw begins to tilt and non-smoking is the presumed activity. At the moment, it seems that the clause will be there for ever and a day, whereas I want there to be smoking signs. In other words, I want there to be a presumption that one cannot smoke anywhere, and that signs are put up in the minority of places in which smoking is still permitted, thanks to the Secretary of State for Defence. It appears that we cannot change the terms of trade or the centre of gravity without primary legislation to change the clause.
It is illegal to perform many activities in public, but there are no signs that say so. I remember signs in France that said, “Défense de Cracher”, which means no spitting. There are no such signs in this country; they are not needed. Will the Minister say at what point we have reached the critical stage where we do not need no-smoking signs because non-smoking is the norm, and where we need instead signs that say “Smoking”? When we have reached that paradise, which I hope will not be too far in the future, will we need primary legislation to amend the clause by deleting the “No” at the beginning of the title of the clause so that it reads “Smoking signs”? Is there another way around this that does not enshrine in legislation the fact that no smoking is the protected activity and that allows us to take that step forward?
It would be helpful if the Minister could say a little about the stage at which no smoking is the norm and we do not need all these signs that will pop up everywhere.