| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Julie Morgan: Does my hon. Friend agree that recent decisions made in the Palace of Westminster are a good sign, but do not go far enough?
Mrs. Williams: They are certainly a step in the right direction, which is why we are saying what we are this morning. I shall certainly rejoice if my hon. Friend's Bill gives the National Assembly an opportunity to ban smoking in public places in Wales, and I invite Members to support that move.
11.14 am
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) on coming so high in the ballot and on introducing this Bill. I think she would be the first to admit, or at least would confirm, that it is largely a descendant of two similar Bills introduced in the House of Lords by, respectively, Lady Finlay and Lord Faulkner of Worcester. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) pointed out, both Bills received close attention in the early part of 2004 from the Committee to which he referred, and both Committee reports commented that, irrespective of their content, the Bills were not appropriate vehicles for the adjustment of public policy that they proposed.
Before dealing specifically with this Bill, may I briefly—and I hope not improperly—use the opportunity of a Bill containing the word "Wales" to congratulate, I hope on behalf of all Members, the soldier in the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, Private Johnson Beharry, who has been awarded the Victoria cross? That is a great achievement, and I hope we can all put aside our differences on the Bill and extend our congratulations to him.
Given that I represent a seat in England, Members may wonder what on earth I am doing speaking on a Bill relating to Wales. I suppose my only connection with Wales, apart the fact that I have been there a number of times on private visits, is that I went to university in Wales—but a bit of Wales that happened to be in Oxford. Jesus college Oxford is a bit of flying Wales, like flying Flint: it is peopled mostly by Welsh undergraduates. I felt very honoured to be able to go to that part of Wales to study modern history.
The college bar at Jesus is, I understand, a "voluntary" smoke-free area. That is fine: if the undergraduates and other members of the college want it to be smoke free, that is entirely a matter for them. I am not sure, however, that it needs to be a matter of public legislation. The Bill may be well meaning and well motivated, but I feel that it approaches the subject from the wrong angle, uses the wrong legislative machinery, and ironically—despite the hon. Lady's motives—will not achieve what she intends. She intends to reduce the incidence of harm to people in Wales caused by smoking. She and I have similar views about the detrimental effect of smoking on health, and no doubt we would both prefer not to sit in tobacco smoke-filled environments; but she intends to achieve her purpose by banning smoking in public places as defined in the Bill.
18 Mar 2005 : Column 525
Let us suppose that I have a house in Wales, and open my garden for a church fete. To get into the garden, people must pay 50p or £1 at the garden gate. According to the definition in the Bill, the garden would then become an enclosed premise, and smoking in my garden—to which I had invited people so that, on payment of a small sum, they could look at my flowers or shrubs—would become an offence.
It seems to me wholly disproportionate that people living in my imaginary village in Wales and wanting to visit my imaginary garden—although they may be smokers, who may or may not know of the law that the hon. Lady wishes to pass—should be subject to a fairly severe summary penalty that would make the raising of church funds that much more difficult.
Mr. Forth : I am fascinated by my hon. and learned Friend's example. Does he think that clause 2 would also apply to his imaginary premises in Wales? My reading of that clause—I hope to return to this issue in some detail if I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker—suggests that my hon. and learned Friend's premises would have to carry signs prohibiting smoking and that, as the person in charge, he would be subject to all sorts of penalties. That is to say nothing of the other detailed provisions in clause 3. Is that my hon. and learned Friend's reading of the Bill?
Mr. Garnier: I fear that it is, and I shall deal with the points raised by my right hon. Friend by way of an example relating to clause 6, which deals with the interpretation of, for example, the phrase "enclosed public space". If the hon. Lady thinks that the example of opening my garden for a church fête is far-fetched, what about an amateur football game?
Julie Morgan: I was interested to hear the hon. and learned Gentleman's example of opening a house and garden to raise money for church fêtes or other such activities. In fact, the noble Baroness Finlay used such a situation as an example of the circumstances in which her legislation would apply. However, such legislation would apply to enclosed public spaces such as the hon. and learned Gentleman's house were he to serve tea in it, for example—so, such situations have been considered in drafting this Bill.
Mr. Garnier: I am not sure what the conclusion of the consideration is, having heard the hon. Lady's intervention. Lady Finlay is a woman of huge intellect and I cannot believe that she has failed to think about the criminal penalty niggles that could be an unintended consequence of her legislation. I just hope that the hon. Lady has applied her intellect to the likely and unintended—but foreseeable—consequences of this Bill.
I return to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), which opens up an area of inquiry that we should not avoid before giving this Bill a Second Reading. As I have said before, I take the firm view that smoking is bad for people. I do not wish to encourage it, and it would be foolish of anybody nowadays to think that smoking is not deleterious to health. However, let us consider the example of a football game not at the stadium of a premiership or championship club—the hon. Lady did
18 Mar 2005 : Column 526
say at the beginning of the debate that a stadium would constitute an enclosed public space for the purposes of her Bill—but at a village football club. Such a space is not enclosed, save that it is within a field. It may well be that there is a gate to let cars in, so that parents of children who might be playing, or the footballers themselves, can park their cars in the field. In such a situation, they would have to come through that gate in order to enter the field and to park.
During the course of a tournament game between village A and village B, it may well be that, in order to raise funds for the amateur league, for example, a charge is made at the gate for access. Such a space is not—unlike the example I gave earlier of my garden and the fête—a private open space to which the public are given access; rather, it is a more obviously public area to which the public have access at all times. However, on this occasion, access is restricted by the payment of a car parking fee, or a fee for entering the recreation ground or football field area.
As I understand the Bill, such a situation would clearly fall within clause 6, because the hon. Lady defines an enclosed public space as
"any premises to which at the material time the public or any section of the public has access on payment or otherwise"—
So, such a recreation ground could be a public open space to which the ordinary citizen has right of access, or it could be owned by a village football club or the parish and not open to general public access, except with the club's or parish's permission. In either case, it would be impermissible under the Bill, were it to be passed and were the field in question in Wales, for a spectator to smoke—I leave aside the question of whether it is a good idea for the referee or the players to indulge in smoking—while the match was taking place.
I do not image that that is what the hon. Lady intends the Bill to do. She wants to prevent people from smoking in hospitals, pubs, restaurants and other such places to which the public have access. But unless a great deal of careful thought is given, her Bill, if enacted, will lead to these foreseeable—to me, at least—but unintended consequences.
Mr. Forth: Following that logic, what catches my eye is clause 3(3)(d), as a result of which the innocent person for the time being in charge of the enclosed public space that my hon. and learned Friend has just defined would become a guilty party. If my understanding of that provision is correct, were someone to light a cigarette in that enclosed public space, be it inadvertently or deliberately, the person for the time being in charge—they could be running a charity event or could simply be the organiser of a young people's football match—would also be guilty of an offence.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |