Clause 8 - Fixed penalties for offence of smoking in smoke-free place
Health Bill
4:45 pm
Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Health; Westbury, Conservative)
Clause 8 continues the theme of offences and deals with fixed penalties for the offence of smoking in smoke-free places. The clause is closely aligned to schedule 1. I have a series of points and questions that I should like to put to the Minister, some of which have already been touched on. The clauses in this part of the Bill seem to merge into one another. If I am repetitive, I apologise. That is probably indicative of my discomfort with some of the remarks made.
I want to know more about enforcement officers. I am a little concerned about them, not least about their welfare. The Local Government Association, which represents the organisations that will employ those officers, is also concerned about that. We have discussed public health, and it can mean all sorts of things. I am very worried about the safety of enforcement officers, and I hope that the Minister will address that. They will put themselves in the line of fire in the course of the work that they will be expected to do. They may find themselves in situations in which one could expect tempers to be a little raw and in which one might expect trouble. I am not sure whether enforcement officers will much welcome the new duties that will be placed on them by the Bill, but we shall see.
It will be interesting to hear how the Minister expects fixed penalty notices to work. Does she expect teams of enforcement officers to circulate around licensed premises, seeking out smokers and licensees who are flouting the law, and handing out penalty notices? Does she expect existing enforcement officers—mainly environmental health officers—to perform those duties as an extra bolt-on job? Alternatively, will the enforcement officers rely merely on tip-offs from the public? It would be useful to get an idea of the scale of the operation. No doubt she will want to refer to the experience of other countries.
We have not entirely dealt with the problem of repeat offenders. Does it matter how many fixed penalty notices a person clocks up, or will it be £50 a time? I suspect that there will be some who regard that as a risk worth taking, especially if they enjoy a cigarette and are minded to pay £50, which, in some people’s minds, especially in wealthy parts of London, is not a great deal. They may spend considerably more than that on a night out, and may habitually flout the law and be quite happy to pay £50. They may even keep that amount in their back pockets, ready to pay the fine if an enforcement officer chances upon them, which will not happen very often, unless the Minister intends to embark on a wholesale recruitment campaign.
We are worried about training for enforcement officers. The LGA is much exercised about how that will take place. It is a complex new area and a departure from the usual work of environmental health officers. The LGA points out that fixed penalty notices are not part of the weft and warp of the work of environmental health officers, and that they will require considerable training before they are expected to go forth and pin enforcement notices on people. It will be interesting to know what thought the Minister has given to that and what cost will be involved in that training. I seek assurance that that money will be found centrally and will not be an added burden on our hard-pressed council tax payers who, in my area and in the areas represented by my right hon. and hon. Friends, already face substantial hikes in the not too distant future. Such things, of course, mean that the charges go up and it is something over which poor old councils have no control.
I hope that the Minister has recognised the need to train environmental health officers and others who are expected to enforce the provision, that she has costed it and that she is prepared to find a sum of money from the centre that will allow councils or whoever to do the necessary training. It would also be useful to know a little more about how individuals will physically pay the penalty. We remember with some affection the Prime Minister’s notion that fixed penalty notices could be discharged by marching people off to a hole in a wall, where they would put their plastic in, take out fifty quid and give it to the constable. That did not last very long. I imagine that the Minister does not have that scheme in mind, but it will be useful to know what she does.
It will also be useful to know about identification. As I understand it, enforcement officers will march into establishments, spot someone smoking in a corner and say, “You’re nicked, mate, here’s your enforcement notice.” They will probably ask who he is, write it down and keep a receipt. That is all very well in the context of road traffic offences, because it is possible to find out who the person is—assuming that the car is not stolen—by phoning up the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea. It will give chapter and verse on who the owner is, which gives a hold on the person.
That is not the case with enforcement notices in pubs. If I had one of those notices, I could say, “I’m Joe Bloggs and I live in Grimsby.” A notice would be written out in the name of Joe Bloggs from Grimsby, handed to me, and I would go on my way rejoicing. I would be highly unlikely to cough up the fifty quid by return of post and I would get away with it. I am sure that the Minister will have thought about how we confirm the identity of those who are subject to enforcement notices.
That is especially important because we are discussing a self-selected population. Far be it from me to say that people who smoke are more likely to commit offences than anyone else, but we are talking about people who have gone into a pub, ignored the notices and are, therefore, perhaps a little more likely than us to give a false identity in order to get away with not paying the £50 fine. With repeat offenders that is particularly important because after they have done it once, assuming that they can think up sufficient names to give the enforcement officer without including Mickey Mouse, they can potentially get away with it time and time again.
This seems so obvious that I suspect the Minister will have thought about it and, in the regulations that she will put before us at some point, will have a way of determining identity for enforcement officers. Otherwise, the provision stands at risk of becoming a laughing stock. That is important. I know she is thinking about fixed penalty notices for traffic offences, which is when they are most commonly used.