Memorandum by the Smoking Control Network
(SP19)
The Smoking Control Network has welcomed the
Government's recent consultation on the Smokefree Elements of
the Health Improvement and Protection Bill, and is pleased to
submit this brief memorandum to the Health Select Committee, to
assist its Inquiry into the Government's proposals.
INTRODUCTION TO
THE SMOKING
CONTROL NETWORK
The Smoking Control Network is a collaboration
of leading British health charities and commercial and professional
organisations, which work together to reduce the deaths and disability
caused by smoking related diseases. It aims to promote smoking
cessation policies and to campaign for strong government action
to help smokers give up.
The Smoking Control Network's voluntary and
professional members comprise: Asthma UK, British Heart Foundation,
British Lung Foundation, British Vascular Foundation, Cancer Research
UK, Diabetes UK, Macmillan Cancer Relief, QUIT, the Roy Castle
Lung Cancer Foundation, The Stroke Association, the British Dental
Association, Royal College of Midwives, Royal College of Nursing
and No Smoking Day. ASH is an observer. The administration of
the Network is supported by an educational grant from GlaxoSmithKline
Consumer Healthcare.
SUMMARY
Smoking Control Network Members warmly welcome
the Government's broad aims to reduce smoking in enclosed public
places and workplaces. We do not see the justification, however,
for exempting private members' clubs or pubs, which do not serve
prepared food, or for allowing an extra year for licensed premises
to comply with the legislation.
The Smoking Control Network urges the Government
to put forward comprehensive smokefree legislation to protect
workers in all workplaces and to bring this into effect across
the country as soon as possible and certainly by the end of 2007.
RESPONSE
— The evidence about the risks to workers'
health of secondhand smoke is clear, and well documented. The
report of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco & Health specifically
identified bar workers as one of the groups at greatest risk.
Research by international expert, Professor Konrad Jamrozik, has
estimated the number of UK deaths from secondhand smoke in the
workplace at 617 per year, including 54 hospitality workers per
year. We question the idea of legislating to allow barworkers'
health to be put at greater risk from secondhand smoke than that
of other workers.
— Pubs and clubs are covered by the
comprehensive smokefree legislation successfully introduced in
Ireland in March 2004. In the nine months following the introduction
of smoke-free workplace legislation, 94% of Irish licensed premises
inspected were compliant with the law. The Smoking, Health &
Social Care (Scotland) Act, now approved by the Scottish Parliament
for implementation in Spring 2006, also applies to pubs and clubs.
The Welsh Assembly's Committee on Smoking in Public Places did
not recommend exemptions for pubs and clubs.
— Evidence from the BMA suggests that
the former Health Secretary's (10-30%) estimate of pubs, which
do not prepare food on the premises, which would be exempted from
the smokefree requirement, would appear to understate the real
situation around the country.
— Without an obligation on all sections
of the hospitality industry to go smokefree at the same time,
there is a real risk that the exemption proposed for non-food
pubs could have the unintended and perverse consequence of increasing
the number of "wet" pubs. These are likely to be located
in some of the poorest parts of England, and serving the more
deprived communities. As a result, this measure could lead to
a widening of existing health inequalities. This exemption could
also serve to exacerbate the problems of binge drinking in these
areas.
— Comprehensive smokefree legislation
would be much easier and less expensive to enforce than proposals
with exemptions. The policing of the definitions of "non-prepared
food" could prove tortuous and expensive.
— There is increasing public support
for comprehensive smokefree provision. The latest survey conducted
in July by the BMRB for ASH and Cancer Research UK concluded that
73% supported the proposal to make ALL enclosed workplaces, including
pubs and restaurants smokefree, with 24% saying no and 3% saying
don't know.
— Smoking Control Network members asks
the Health Select Committee to urge the Government to review all
the evidence on the effective implementation of smokefree provision
in many other countries, and to have the confidence to put forward
comprehensive smokefree legisation this Autumn—to protect
the health of all workers in this country from the known risks
of secondhand smoke.
September 2005
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