Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
DR STEVE
STOTESBURY, MS
CHRISTINE MOHRMANN
AND MR
BARRY JENNER
20 OCTOBER 2005
Q160 Dr Stoate: I am not saying it
does not work.
Mr Jenner: It meets the threshold
that passes the needs and preferences of people in other Member
States. We are trying, with our investment in the study—and
we would look to be able to work with Government, because we think
that is important in trying to develop practical, meaningful solutions
that do not discriminate against workers—to understand and
work with them to establish an air quality standard, perhaps,
that could be widely adopted and employed so that those aims could
be adequately achieved without discriminating against those 12
million adults in the UK who, after all, do make an informed adult
decision to smoke tobacco products.
Q161 Dr Stoate: Surely the only adequate
protection for employees is one that reduces their risk pretty
much down to the backline level. We have heard that ventilation
just does not achieve that. Are you saying that those studies
are wrong and that ventilation does achieve the atmosphere to
which workers are entitled?
Mr Jenner: I did not say that
study was wrong and I am not saying that this study you have in
mind is wrong either. Clearly, as far as employees are concerned,
it is the case that 88% of the workforce in the United Kingdom
are already covered by restrictions and regulations that establish
a very clear smoking policy in the workplace. There are only 8%
of employees in the United Kingdom who are not covered at all
by such a policy. The 4% difference, I understand, being the self-employed
and people who work outside.
Q162 Dr Taylor: Ms Mohrmann, you
talked about signage. Is there any evidence that signage works?
The Government have health warnings on packets of cigarettes.
Is there any evidence that those have any effect?
Ms Mohrmann: It is about providing
information to a consumer for them to be able to make their own
decisions about whether they enter into an establishment. We think
it is very important that the Government continues to communicate
the public health messages on smoking in public places and in
general on tobacco related issues.
Q163 Dr Taylor: Has there been a
reduction in smoking generally since the Government put the health
warnings on packets?
Ms Mohrmann: I think you have
to take into a lot of consideration the many factors that could
impact, let us say, smoking rates within the country. Health warning
labels may be one of those factors, but there are certainly a
lot of factors to take into consideration.
Q164 Anne Milton: Do you support
the Government in its aim of reducing both the number of people
who smoke and the number of cigarettes that smokers smoke?
Mr Jenner: We support the Government
in the aim of providing information for people to be able to make
informed choices. As referred to, the advent of health warnings
in 1971 certainly illustrates that, and we have worked with Government
to safeguard their overall strategy. We are concerned with recognising
that 12 million people still choose to smoke tobacco products,
whilst we support the Government in its aim to seek a solution
that talks about restriction rather than bans, and to work with
them. There are many facets of the proposals that our company
support. We support the notion that people should not smoke at
the bar area in front of bar workers, for example. We support
the notion that adult smokers should be courteous, considerate
and employ commonsense: they certainly should not smoke around
very young children, for example. We agree with the point about
signage, both externally to the venue and internally, so that
people have the information as to the smoking policy. There is
a raft of aspects of the proposals as being deliberated here today
that we support, but it is the case that the UK duty paid market
has contracted in the UK every year since 1973.
Q165 Anne Milton: But you would be
happy if people smoked less.
Mr Jenner: I think it is a situation
where we are happy that people can have the right to enjoy, whatever
situation they are in, the right to smoke a cigarette should they
so choose. That is why, for example, our view is that the provision
of separate areas is a sensible and practical way forward. That
seems to us to strike the right balance between responsibilities
and freedoms and in our view an outright ban is not really necessary
to achieve the Government's goals.
Q166 Anne Milton: Could I ask you
Dr Stotesbury and Ms Mohrmann your views, please?
Dr Stotesbury: We recognise that
other people's tobacco smoke can be annoying. It can lead to concerns
of health. We would support the Government in restrictions, but
we do not believe that that necessitates an outright ban. We think
there are practical solutions which allow choice and that is what
we would support.
Q167 Anne Milton: So your issue is
bringing choice into it.
Dr Stotesbury: Absolutely.
Q168 Anne Milton: Rather than legislation.
Dr Stotesbury: I think you can
achieve it through legislation or through voluntary agreement
and I would argue that the voluntary agreement that we have seen
in place between the Government and the hospitality sector over
the last six or seven years has in fact delivered an amount of
choice. There is much more provision of non-smoking pubs and segregation
of smokers and non-smokers, and I think that is a good thing.
Q169 Dr Stoate: You say that voluntary
agreement can work. It certainly did not work with advertising,
which is why the Government in the end had to legislate. The voluntary
codes which were set up with the tobacco industry over very many
years failed to deliver. That is why the only argument was to
go down the legislative route, which did produce results. The
tobacco industry does not have a good record of voluntary codes
being effective.
Dr Stotesbury: As I said, this
agreement was with the hospitality sector. I believe that it worked
extremely well.
Q170 Charlotte Atkins: What evidence
can you give this Committee that that voluntary approach actually
worked?
Dr Stotesbury: Under the voluntary
approach, it was all about targets of signage, as Christine has
said, and provision of non-smoking areas/smoking areas within
that. They were all met within the given timeframe.
Q171 Charlotte Atkins: How many outlets
were affected by this? If you could give us the detail on that,
unless you have it in front of you now.
Dr Stotesbury: I do not have the
detail in front of me now.
Q172 Charlotte Atkins: We do need
to have that. You are saying the voluntary approach works. We
are being told by our advisers that that is certainly not the
case. The Public Places Charter scheme was introduced by the Smoking
Kills White Paper in 1988 in order to control smoking in public
places, but the charter targets were not met according to our
evidence and nearly half the licensed premises whichwere charter
compliant allowed smoking throughout the whole public licensed
area. If that is the case—do you dispute those figures?—then
clearly it did not work.
Mr Jenner: The data the DoH required
showed that where effective smoking policies were in place in
premises, through the work that we had done, together with the
hospitality interest, increased in 1995 from 15% of all establishments
to 63% in 2003, concluding that that figure would have been even
greater in 2004. That was data collected by the DoH itself. I
think we refer to that specific study in the submission to which
we are a party through the TMA. I think you will find the detail
in there. For smoking areas throughout the target, it is my understanding—although
we will certainly check with your permission, Mr Chairman—those
set standards were met and were met by some margin actually.
Q173 Charlotte Atkins: You are saying
63%, so over one-third were not compliant.
Mr Jenner: I think it just demonstrates
the terrific strides that can be made in a voluntary approach.
As I mentioned, it is clear, although the DoH data is not available
for 2004, that for sure it would have been exceeded in 2004. All
I am saying is that the move from 15 to 63% demonstrates how significant
and great strides can be made by working in partnership with all
the stakeholders.
Q174 Charlotte Atkins: That may well
be the case but you always come back, do you not, to the hard
core. In earlier evidence I was disputing that if you have exemptions
then you are going to have a situation in inner city areas, for
instance, where you have drinking-only pubs that become cancer
dens effectively. You may well have got it to 63%, but, usually,
when you have a voluntary approach the easy targets are met first.
How do you progress that using the voluntary route to hit the
hard targets? How are you going to find the over one-third who
were not complying? How do you then move it on? How does the voluntary
approach do that?
Mr Jenner: I think our view slightly
earlier on was that there can be a balance between responsibilities
and freedoms and not bans. We are in favour as a company of further
restrictions. That is why we do prefer the solution which accommodates
not only a minority but a significant tranche of the population,
wherever they are domiciled, so that they can enjoy their pleasures,
whether it is a drinking den, or whatever the phrase you used
was, or a country establishment in rural wherever. I think the
provision of separate designated areas where there is information
available to all to make a judgment, an informed choice, seemed
to us to balance those responsibilities and freedoms that I guess
all of us hold dear.
Q175 Charlotte Atkins: How do you
move it on from the 63%? That is the easy target. What about the
over one-third who are not complying? This is since 1998. Presumably
we have now hit a plateau. How do we move from that plateau to
get compliance in the other areas? I would like to know from you
what aspect of the voluntary approach, what new development within
the voluntary approach you can give to us to indicate that there
is going to be some movement via the voluntary approach as opposed
to via the legislative approach.
Mr Jenner: I think we are very
keen to be party to a framework, whether voluntary or not or whether
it is a framework that has very clear regulations, that can set
out very clearly the options available to those who choose not
to smoke and those who choose to do so. That can be a separately
designated area, with ventilation. There are low costs in—
Q176 Charlotte Atkins: Do you mean
a smoking room within a pub?
Mr Jenner: A separate designated
area where it is practical, reasonable and cost-effective so to
do. If you take, for example, a situation with a rural area, where
there may only be one bar area, then it seems to us that an appropriate
way forward would be for the landlord, the proprietor of the establishment,
to determine with his clientele what the policy should be. That
seems to us to be a very sensible, commonsense, pragmatic approach.
Q177 Charlotte Atkins: Is it an equally
pragmatic approach for the smoker to go outside, have a quick
cigarette and come back in again?
Mr Jenner: That is what they do
in the Republic of Ireland, but you can look across the European
Union as a whole and you will find a range of solutions to this
topic which extend from exemptions for hospitality areas on the
one hand, to regulations in hospitality areas, to ventilation
in some instances, for example in Italy. I do not know why necessarily
the word "ban" had to come into play, because there
are a lot of alternatives to achieve, I am sure, the overall aims
of the Government.
Q178 Charlotte Atkins: You have not
yet given me an alternative to get into this hard core. What new
approach under the voluntary regime can we adopt to get to the
over one-third number of premises that are not complying and have
not moved on under the voluntary approach?
Mr Jenner: As I think I mentioned,
it is to move from a conversation around, in your words, a voluntary
approach to a framework, or, if you like, a proposal that the
Government has in mind, and our view simply is to accommodate
the needs and wishes of all parties and a balance between responsibility
and freedom. A regulatory approach that can be derived from a
framework, a menu, if you will, seems to go some way to allaying
your concerns.
Q179 Charlotte Atkins: A framework
does not do very much to meet my concern about going into a pub
in one of my villages in my constituency and not having to be
affected by second-hand smoke.
Mr Jenner: I think the opportunity
to have clearly delineated areas, to have information prior to
entering the establishment, and certainly within it, of what the
facilities are in there, and clearly, as I have already mentioned,
if it is the single bar solution, then we have given a way forward
where we think that everyone can be adequately accommodated.
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