4.5 pm

Part of Health Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at on 13 December 2005.

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Photo of Andrew Murrison Andrew Murrison Shadow Minister (Health)

What a pleasure it is to see you, Mr. Illsley. Before lunch, I was in the middle of summing up my remarks on clause 6, which has to do with signage. I was saying how much sense there was in proposals that, rather than having no-smoking signs, we should have smoking signs. Given the direction in which we are going, in the fullness of time smoking will be the exception, having once, sadly, been the rule. That being so, it will be better to have smoking signs where that exceptional activity is permitted, rather than no-smoking signs, which—we would hope—will be largely redundant.

Of course, there would be cost implications, although signs are relatively cheap. I recall the observation of my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) that there is the possibility that in creating this legislation we are assisting not only lawyers but signmakers. If they have any sense, they will be watching our deliberations very closely in the expectation of producing lots of signs in the not-too-distant future. That is not, in itself, a bad thing, but it will be a good thing to reduce the burden on those who operate premises by minimising the amount of signage that is required. There are other good reasons for minimising signage, including the fact that signs tend to clutter a place. We are all aware of highway clutter—in my case, I pass signs about this, that or the other every five minutes all the way down to the west country. I know that one or two of my hon. Friends have been exercised by that, especially the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who is particularly concerned about roadside clutter.

However, it is a more general point. We seem to be erecting more and more signs wherever we go, so surely it is a good thing to minimise that, especially in sensitive areas, which places open to the public often are. I am thinking particularly of historic and listed buildings. It would be good to have as few ugly signs intruding on our enjoyment of those places as possible.

The trouble with signs is that if we institute a new range, that will lessen the significance of those that we have already. At the moment, we have helpful signs telling us where to go and so on, safety signs, exit signs, and signs telling us what to do to maximise our chances of having an incident-free visit. We are at risk of going into information overload. By having smoking rather than no-smoking signs, we will improve signage in general, ensure that we do not dilute the existing messages, particularly the important ones relating to health and safety, and reduce the regulatory burden on businesses that will have to display signs and, importantly, police them.

The Bill places an obligation on individuals to ensure that there is adequate signage. If we can keep that as simple as possible, that has to be a good thing. Later in our consideration of the Bill, remarks on keeping things simple, made by the Local Government Association, will probably be mentioned. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment that is taken, pretty well verbatim—correction, verbatim—from a suggestion made in an LGA paper, which was sent to all members of the Committee, stating that it was worried about the complexity of some of the arrangements. By keeping matters as simple as possible we will at least satisfy the LGA and, I suspect, many others.

I hope that the Minister listened carefully to the helpful suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), which is sound good sense. Let us please have smoking signs rather than non-smoking signs.