Results 1-20 of 58 for smoking speaker:Steve Webb

Orders of the Day: Clause 3 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (18 Jul 2006)

Steve Webb: ...point about this artistic integrity exemption is that it creates more grey areas. I have stood—that shows how long ago it was—at football matches and been absolutely choked by cigarette smoke, albeit only for 90 minutes, so one would have to make a judgment about the long-term harm that it was doing to me. What we need above all is clarity. People need to know where they stand,...

Orders of the Day: Clause 3 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (18 Jul 2006)

Steve Webb: ...Minister will regard this as a formal response to her formal consultation on the regulations: please do not include rehearsals. Whereas performances are a limited number of occurrences, allowing smoking during a long run of rehearsals would be potentially much more detrimental to the people who support the rehearsal process. Amendment No. 12 deals with not raising beyond 18 the age of sale...

Orders of the Day: Clause 3 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (18 Jul 2006)

Steve Webb: The principal amendments in this group that I want to discuss are amendment No. 2 and the related ones that deal with smoking in performances and rehearsals. I was astonished to learn that their lordships were attempting to table amendments to cover theatrical performances and rehearsals. My initial reaction was to ask why the actors could not just act. That would surely be a better response....

Orders of the Day: Clause 3 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (18 Jul 2006)

Steve Webb: I am in close contact with my local authority, South Gloucestershire, which is a great enthusiast for the smoking ban, but is also anxious that it will have inadequate notice of when everything will happen, so it would like a definite date as soon as possible. It also wants to know that it will have the resources to enforce the ban. Can the Minister assure us that local authorities will not...

Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day]: Management of the National Health Service (9 May 2006)

Steve Webb: ..., should ever go, but we are saying that change should be measured, rational, planned and undertaken according to a long-term strategy. The preventive work to which my hon. Friend referred—smoking cessation and work on childhood obesity—tends to have a long-term payback. It is the first thing to be cut, therefore, because it provides no immediate, tangible benefit.

Written Answers — Health: Smoking (28 Mar 2006)

Steve Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will take steps to ensure that local authorities have sufficient resources from 2006–07 in order to enforce effectively the proposed ban on smoking in public places.

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: Schedule 8 — Minor and consequential amendments (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...come back to it. It is always a good day when a Liberal Democrat manifesto policy is implemented. Of the manifestos of the three major parties, only the Liberal Democrats' contained a total ban on smoking, so my colleagues and I am delighted by the outcome of today's vote. It goes further. Of the three Front-Bench speeches that opened our debate, only one—modesty forbids my saying...

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...'s point. I suspect that the reason is more to do with pragmatism than anything else, but I am making an argument about private clubs. The Secretary of State says that 95 per cent. of passive smoke comes from the home, as though the other 5 per cent. is somehow inconsequential, yet we have heard that we are talking about a very large number of people whose health is clearly adversely...

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...is getting confused between a certainty of 5 per cent. and a probability of five in 100. In other words, as we have just heard, no one doubts that the health of people who work in bars where people smoke suffers and that some of them die prematurely. That is certain, inasmuch as these things can ever be proven with certainty. There is not a 5 per cent. chance that that is true; it is...

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...an important issue about, for example, communities with one members' club and one pub. To the extent that a set of people will vote with their feet, a pub that is prevented from allowing anyone to smoke could lose business and thereby possibly be undermined. Again, it would be unfair to introduce such a distortion using legislation. The Secretary of State spoke about space around the bar....

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...used for exempting private members' clubs. The first is that we have some sort of carriage in which people would not have to work. People would presumably have to get in and out of such rooms and smoke goes to and fro. People would also have to clear the glasses in such rooms and sort out any scuffles that might take place. Smoke will remain in such areas, especially if they are sealed,...

Orders of the Day — Health Bill: New Clause 5 — Smoke-free premises: exemptions (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...members' clubs. If we consider the matter, as I have done throughout, in terms of the health and safety of people who work in those environments, the fact that I am breathing in the second-hand smoke of someone who happens to have a membership card is irrelevant. The fact that they have agreed with other club members that they have the right to smoke, and I am expected to breathe it in, is...

Health Bill (Programme) (No. 2) (14 Feb 2006)

Steve Webb: ...from the substantive issue, I shall not detain the House. However, I want to make one point. In the three hours available, we are discussing two groups of amendments—those relating to the smoking ban and the completely separate provisions about the position of 16 to 18-year olds. As the first group is obviously contentious, with a wide range of related issues, it seems extremely...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: New Clause 2 - Age of sale (15 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: ...I shall clearly state our position, is that our approach throughout the Bill—we set great store by consistency, as the Committee will know—has been that our concern is the impact of smoking on third parties. Adults should be able to smoke if they want to but third parties, particularly employees, should not have to face the consequences of that smoke. That has enabled us to...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: New Clause 2 - Age of sale (15 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: ...made a compelling case for the franchise to be extended to 16-year-olds, for which there is growing support. There are compelling arguments for that as well. The question is what we should do about smoking specifically. Is someone adult enough to decide about smoking at 16 or 18? We have had one or two examples so far: Guernsey has been cited, and I think the Isle of Man was cited last...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: New Clause 2 - Age of sale (15 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: ...his spare time on the ONS website. He makes a good point. Wherever a threshold is set, there will be people just below it who sneak through. As we have heard, if it is 16, 15 and 14-year-olds will smoke, and if it were 18, it would be 17 and 16-year-olds. It is more of a worry if 15, 14 and 13-year-olds are smoking than if 17 and 16-year-olds are doing so, which they can do at the moment....

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: New Clause 2 - Age of sale (15 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: Right. I do not know whether she was equally sympathetic, or overruled by the Secretary of State. Why, if this part of the Bill is concerned with the harm that is done by smoking, is this not in the Bill? Why could it not have been put in the White Paper, consulted on when everything else was consulted on, researched when everything else was researched, and brought forward in the Bill? I can...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 10 - Enforcement (13 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: ...on safety. Let us imagine a crowded pub—we are getting slightly obsessed with pubs, but this is an obvious example—where people are fairly well oiled and more than one person is smoking. In a way, if there is just a lone smoker, enforcement is not so much trouble, because there will be much more peer pressure. However, it will be harder to approach a group of smokers, so in...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 9 - Offence of failing to prevent smoking in smoke-free place (13 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: ...argument. Some suggest that the penalty is not severe enough and that it should be more severe. The rationale for that view is that in the Bill the manager of a premises who fails to prevent smoking is liable for a penalty of up to £200, whereas the maximum penalty in the Irish Republic is £2,000 and there is also a power to close the premises for three months, which is clearly...

Public Bill Committee: Health Bill: Clause 6 - No-smoking signs (13 Dec 2005)

Steve Webb: ...(5) can offer a defence. Subsection (5) says that it is an offence to fail to comply with the duty in subsection (1), and subsection (1) explains that the duty is “to make sure that no-smoking signs complying with the requirements of this section are displayed ... in accordance with the requirements of this section.” Therefore, the offence is failing to ensure that proper...