Clause 5 - Vehicles

Part of Health Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:45 am on 13 December 2005.

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Photo of Steve Webb Steve Webb Shadow Secretary of State for Health 10:45, 13 December 2005

My understanding of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Westbury is that the three amendments are different permutations—A, B or C—or different ways of expressing an understandable view that he would not want the clause to prohibit smoking in private vehicles. I have some sympathy with that point. As the hon. Member for Stafford said in an intervention, the reference to payment in amendment No. 9 is not the right test. With regard to the harm done by passive smoking, just as it does not matter where food is served, it does not matter whether one pays for the journey or not. That seems to be a red herring.

Amendment No. 8 offers a general description of “transport of the public”, whereas amendment No. 78 refers to:

“children, the public and for persons in the course of their employment”.

As the hon. Member for Westbury acknowledges, the latter formulation is better than the former. I suspect that adding the word “children” is for effect, as children are part of the public. Even so, there would be no harm in adding it. I broadly agree with the thrust of what he said, which is that we want to be clear about what comes within the scope of the clause.

My question is about privately hired coaches. My parents are active members of an organisation called the University of the Third Age. One of the things that they do all the time is go on coach trips. They regularly hire a coach. If it is a private transaction—a private hire of a coach—can the members decide whether they want to smoke, as member of private clubs can? That would worry me, as the coach driver is an employee who would be exposed to smoke. My parents do not smoke, but their friends do. We could go on to debate whether it would be all right if the window were open and so on, but, in principle, a coach driver in such circumstances ought to have some protection. We worry about bar staff in an enclosed place. Yes, the driver can open a window, but perhaps he cannot if it is a rainy, horrible day. One can think of all sorts of arguments along those lines.

Therefore, simply saying “the public” or

“persons in the course of their employment” does not cover all circumstances. The purpose of the coach trip is to convey not the coach driver but the passengers. I am worried that the coach driver would not be covered by amendment No. 78. It is not a works bus, but I am not clear what the implication is.

Our amendment No. 51 simply takes the list of examples in the clause and chucks in a few more, to use a technical term. We have added buses and coaches to

“train, vessel, aircraft and hovercraft”.

Can the Minister explain what a vessel is? Does “vessel” imply sea-going? I am slightly confused by that. I also wonder about the omissions. Do buses and coaches already come under some other legislation? Are we to take that as read?

Lists of examples worry me. We had them in a previous clause, and the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) pointed out the need to be consistent and have all the examples or none of them. They do not add anything to the Bill. The same thing applies in this clause. I suppose the argument is that one could put something in the Bill and some quibbling lawyer—no disrespect to the hon. Member for Stafford—could come along and say that it was obvious that “vehicle” did not mean train, but one could have understood it to mean trains. Putting something in a Bill pre-empts that kind of thing. However, if we are going to do that, the list should be very long. We have already dealt with submarines. Amendment No. 51 would add buses and coaches.

I wonder what the basis was for deciding which things would be included and which would not. Our amendment adds a few things. The Minister may say, “Yes, it’s a fair cop. We should have put them in,” and, for the first time ever, I would have contributed words to the law of the land.