Clause 7 - Offence of smoking in smoke-free place
Health Bill
4:15 pm
Andrew Murrison (Shadow Minister, Health; Westbury, Conservative)
I was rather hoping to heighten the Liberal Democrats’ discomfiture by coming in at the end to give them more time to marshal their thoughts—a need evidenced by their cunning point of order. Self-enforcement is very important. I hope that the Minister will tell us to what extent she believes the measure will be self-enforcing. The Local Government Association is certainly concerned. It is greatly exercised by the question of who will deal with enforcement in relation to the offences under the Act. Its briefing, which I hope all members of the Committee have read and inwardly digested, states that it hopes—I think it expects—that the measure will be largely self-enforcing, and that it therefore hopes that the burden on its members will be minimised. However, we are not sure about that, and the best litmus test will be what happens in other countries, to which the Minister referred extensively in her earlier remarks.
It would be useful to know which countries the Minister has benchmarked us with, and particularly—I suspect that we shall deal with this on later clauses—what the cost was. We expect her to be able to tell us at some point where the money will come from. Given the likelihood of increases in council tax, I hope that she will tell us that the money will be found from pockets other than those of our hard-pressed constituents. We look forward to hearing news about that, perhaps under later clauses, but some remarks at this juncture about self-enforcement, to assuage the concerns of the Local Government Association, would be most welcome.