Clause 7 - Offence of smoking in smoke-free place
Health Bill
4:30 pm
Stephen Williams (Shadow Minister, Health; Bristol West, Liberal Democrat)
Thank you, Lady Winterton.
I, too, want to discuss subsection (3). I wonder what the defences might be. Perhaps the Minister could expand on the topic. I imagine that not seeing the signs would not be accepted, but perhaps someone might say, by way of a defence, if the matter went as far as court, or if they were challenged by an enforcement officer or someone else, “I was in a pub with which I was not familiar and I did not see anyone eating.”
I know that the big thrust of the Bill is to distinguish between pubs where someone can have a meal and those where they cannot. However, if, for example, I went on holiday to Cheshire, and went into one of the splendid establishments in Congleton, I should not necessarily know whether it had a menu or offered food. At this time in the afternoon, one would not normally expect to see anyone having a meal in any pub in the country. If someone lit up next to me, I should not necessarily have the confidence to say, “Do you know it is illegal to smoke in this pub?” unless I had checked for the right signs in the right places or asked the landlord whether there was a menu for evening or lunchtime food to satisfy myself that I was in a pub where, even though meals were not being served at the time, I could challenge the person and say, “Please put your cigarette out. You are breaking the law.”
Self-enforcement has been mentioned a couple of times. Surely self-enforcement or self-policing of the Bill would be much easier with a total ban in all public houses, so that a non-smoker would have the confidence to challenge anyone they saw smoking and tell them that they were breaking the law, thus putting social pressure on them. Equally, things would work the other way round. There might be small-scale smoking tourism. In Bristol, people might go from one ward where all the pubs had a smoking ban to a pub where they might think smoking continued to be allowed. How would a smoker be able to light up with confidence? A clear demarcation would be easier.
Subsection (5) refers to a fine to be set by the Secretary of State in future regulations. What is the current thinking on that? What sort of fine for smoking in a public place might one typically expect to be offered on a fixed penalty notice?