Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-319)
MR ROB
HAYWARD OBE, MR
JOHN HUTSON,
MR NICK
BISH, MR
BOB COTTON
OBE AND MR
TONY PAYNE
17 NOVEMBER 2005
Q300 Mr Burstow: Would that support
the contention that this would exacerbate health inequalities,
at least in terms of smoking?
Mr Hayward: I think the indications
are yes.
Q301 Mr Burstow: The other thing
which I know is vexing many of you is this question of exemptions
for membership clubs. What are your views about the equity of
such a proposition that membership clubs should be excluded from
the ban?
Mr Bish: We think it is totally
inappropriate. We do not see the consistency or the logic. We
fear the sort of political agenda in the original proposals, but
it is not equitable, it is not fair on the staff who would work
in the club, and it is not fair on the businesses that, as it
were, are just down the road competing for the same trade. You
would end up with a non-smoking, local community pub and a smoking
club just down the road, and there will be a migration of customers,
which I think would lead to what Mr Payne was saying about his
members' likely closures.
Q302 Mr Burstow: Does anyone else
want to add to that? Is that the general view across the industry?
Mr Hayward: It is a general view,
but I would make the observation: people tend to think of it just
as clubs—ie the RAF Club, or the Conservative Club, or the
working men's clubs—this is sporting clubs and all sorts
of other clubs as well, and, therefore, there would be a substantial
impact. Thinking of parts of Bristol, you can think of the rugby
clubs and the football clubs which would have the exemption right
alongside small pubs which are in Tony's membership, and there
would be a number of problems there.
Q303 Mr Burstow: I think my final
question is again going back to the partial ban. Given what you
understand currently of the Government's intentions around this
partial ban (and there are obviously issues about the interpretation
of what food is for this purpose from what we understand), what
are your views about how easy it will be to achieve compliance
with this partial ban?
Mr Cotton: Totally impossible.
Q304 Mr Burstow: Do we have any further
offers in terms of whether it is possible?
Mr Hutson: Why it is going to
be difficult is because there will be no clarity for customers,
because they will not know necessarily, before they walk into
premises, whether they do or do not serve food and whether it
is or is not non-smoking. That is why it will be very difficult
to enforce, because it will not be a simple rule.
Mr Bish: I agree up to a point.
I think that clarity is an issue. I think the experience from
elsewhere has been that the issues of enforcement are the problems.
Compliance actually is less of a problem. I think if there is
clarity, compliance comes through. The difficulties are of enforcement.
Just on that point, I think it is important for the Government
to realise that the industry is, as it were, on side in this,
that our mission is to serve our customers and to protect our
businesses, but in the general smoking cessation debate the remarks
that we have previously made are right. Therefore, there is an
element of alienation in some of the proposals. I particularly
refer to the fines that are being suggested. It seems bizarre
that an individual who smokes against the rules is likely to be
fined £50 and the proprietor of the premises, the manager
of the premises, will be £200. It is like asking a policeman
to pay the fines of the speeders on the motorway. It is bizarre.
Mr Cotton: Can I just add, enforcement
is best done by the consumer. If there is universal understanding
of what the rules are, the consumer will be the enforcer, and
you do not need an enforcement officer or the HOs to go round
and actually do it, in the same way as when smoking was banned
on the underground, for example. If anyone lit up now it would
be consumers who would say, "Stop", and that is the
approach that we want.
Q305 Mr Burstow: Certainly that is
what we picked up whilst we were in Dublin?
Mr Hayward: Can I disagree with
Bob Cotton in relation to his comments. I do not think it is unworkable,
but it is complicated. Where there is a will there will be a way,
and you can work round it, and certainly I think, in general,
pubs and bars would want the process to be achievable.
Q306 Mr Burstow: So the regulatory
burden would be higher, the costs would be greater?
Mr Hayward: There is no question.
Whichever route you go down, whether you go smoking rooms or food
exemptions or any other form of exemption, once you start introducing
those exemptions the complexities rise. There is a suggestion,
for example, that if the clubs exemption remains you will have
pubs switching to clubs in all sorts of fascinating legal manners;
so any exemption has a regulatory burden, but you have to work
within those and I think those are achievable.
Q307 Chairman: It does not describe
a level playing field as far as business is concerned, the sort
of exemptions that are being floated around at the moment. Would
anybody disagree with that statement?
Mr Bish: I think "level playing
field" is a sort of beguiling prospect and to be aspired
to, but that the industry is not itself a level playing field
and the way that operators operate and the markets that they have
and the customer expectations are all different, so we try to
reflect that, and to apply this principle in a level playing field
way is going to be, as Rob said, complicated.
Mr Cotton: Can I just add, though,
that this is primarily a health and safety issue for our employees,
not a consumer driven issue per se; so whilst the level playing
field issue is key in business terms, we really need to get back
to the fact that it is health and safety and protection of employees.
Q308 Chairman: It is the workplace
issue.
Mr Cotton: Yes.
Q309 Chairman: The other thing—I
think Mr Payne you mentioned it talking about when you went in
a pub 30 years ago. Beyond a packet of crisps, none of the pubs
I used to drink in as a youth had anything like food at all. What
food has done, in a sense, in the area of the country that I know,
is changed the culture of what a public house is or is not. Is
there a danger that we are going to go back? If people think commercially
it is best to get out of food so people can drink, are we going
to go back to these men's drinking pubs that there were in the1960s?
Mr Payne: I think it is important
that we just talk in that way, because we have got a situation
now where families go into public houses and I think it is important
that we encourage that. The public houses do a lot. We have got
old age pensioners going in for meals at lunchtimes, and you can
see notices all over with offers for old age pensioners, and they
have nowhere else to go, a lot of them, no social outlet other
than what pubs provide, as far as I am concerned, an excellent
service for old age pensioners, people on low incomes, where they
can go and relax and have a quiet drink. They do mix with smokers,
but I think they are all quite happy that way, and I think that
is important.
Mr Cotton: Can I add, though,
that the nature of the business has changed over the 30 years
in that nowadays for a business to be viable it may serve food
and drink at lunchtime, a different type of business during the
afternoon, then certain things in the evening—maybe heavy
food in the evening, and then at 10 o'clock it becomes almost
predominantly maybe drink only—but in terms of being a viable
business you have to reflect customer needs and the nature of
your business changes throughout the day, so no longer do you
have this sort of clear one thing or the other: What is a pub?
What is a restaurant? What is a restaurant hotel bar? They all
merge together to reflect the nature of business and the need
to have a viable operation.
Q310 Charlotte Atkins: That was a
very interesting point, Mr Cotton. The flavour of your evidence
seems to be that you think the Government does not realise that
you are on side. Can I ask you, therefore, what sort of dialogue
you have had with government over these issues?
Mr Cotton: We have had extensive
dialogue, not just with government in Westminster but in devolved
government as well. I can start off with the extensive discussions
we had in Scotland with the Scottish Executive, one-to-one with
the chief minister and all the team up there to end up with what
I term excellent proposals which the industry is on side with.
When we have come to Westminster over the last two and a half,
three years, I think, I and my colleagues have had extensive meetings
with the Health Department and DCMS, starting off with a voluntary
approach, which we felt was the right way forward to start with,
but when voluntary, as it were, was not an option, we then discussed
in detail possible ways forward, and we have always made two or
three clear issues. One is that to run a viable business you have
to have a partnership with your consumer (with your customer),
so we never wanted to get too far ahead of customers. That is
why we have always said we want a progressive change and we want
to have sufficient time, whatever change is implemented, to bring
your customers with you to mitigate, as it were, the change in
business. That is why we have asked for time to do that, and we
have suggested 2009, perhaps, would give us sufficient time to
do that. We want clarity of understanding for employers, employees
and the consumer, and I felt that we had had good dialogue up
until a few weeks ago when the proposals were issued, which seemed
to be contrary to the nature of the dialogue that we had been
having.
Q311 Charlotte Atkins: Would anyone
else like to comment on that dialogue thing?
Mr Payne: In 1998 when Rosemary
Jenkins was writing a paper for the Department of Health on smoking,
I invited her to come to the north and see some of these one-roomed
rural pubs. We took Rosemary Jenkins in, left her for half an
hour with the licensee, and I took an expert on ventilation with
me so that Rosemary could speak to the people, and she was amazed
at some of these public houses and the difficulty they would have
to compete. The other thing we did put to the government in that
paper, you will notice, is that we suggested that public houses
could also be health clinics. They could, if they wanted it, issue
things like patches. A lot of public houses, in fact, run football
sporting teams, which is another thing to keep the nation fit,
which is one of the government's aims.
Q312 Charlotte Atkins: Would anyone
else like to comment?
Mr Bish: I think we are actually
very proud of what we have achieved. We started engaging with
government more or less when labour came into power after the
1997 Election. The result of that was the 1998 White Paper which
itself endorsed the charter for smoking, and that was definitely
a customer choice issue, but I think the success that we had,
and I fear I disagree with Bob Cotton, I do not think that the
Government really did engage and support our activity. We have
delivered 54 . . . I think the latest figure—public and
newspaper will tell us—is that over 54% of all pubs have
extensive smoking restrictions, positive smoking restrictions.
That was from about 14% back in 1995-96 when we started collecting
this information. There is a huge advance, and I think that there
was a step-change from customer choice once we had started bringing
our customers with us, into the staff issues after we collected
that information. I am not really sure the Government has given
us credit and seen us as being on side and the people who can
deliver the solutions were not in any way in the way.
Mr Hayward: I would just add,
in terms of consultation we do not necessarily like some decisions
that come out of government, but the Department of Health I would
rate on this issue to be above certain other government departments,
which I will not identify, in terms of their willingness at least
to talk to people. Whether you agree with the decision or not
afterwards is a different matter.
Q313 Charlotte Atkins: Mr Hutson,
you are going ahead of the later stage in terms of making most
of your pubs smoke-free?
Mr Hutson: We are.
Q314 Charlotte Atkins: What exactly
are you doing? They are going to be smoke-free from what date?
Mr Hutson: We started to convert
our premises to entirely smoke-free from about March this year,
and so far we have converted 47, which includes a number of new
openings as well. We are doing the whole of Scotland next year.
We are going to review it by the end of the calendar year in terms
of the pace, but we have been doing about one a week since we
decided to convert. Of course, it is quite difficult going it
alone, but our view is, and has been for some time, that a ban,
whether it is through legislation or consumer choice, is inevitable
in any event. Wetherspoon has always tried to appeal to a broad
cross-section of the population and we just found that increasingly
a large proportion of our customers do not like being around those
people that smoke. That was on the basis that at the time we had
non-smoking at the bar, and have done for the last 12 years. We
used to have a third of our customer area permanently set aside
for non-smoking. We increased that to 70% two years ago, and even
then we were getting more and more moves from our customers to
push on and do more, and so that is what we did. In the pubs we
have converted so far we have seen sales fall.
Q315 Charlotte Atkins: This is drink
sales?
Mr Hutson: This is overall sales,
led by drink sales, because food sales have risen sharply, in
fairness, and sales overall are down 7% in our pubs, which we
think is about what happened in the first year or so of Ireland
and which is far better than what happened in New York and about
the same as what happened, as far as we can tell, in California.
It will be painful for a couple of years, which is why we would
advocate, as Bob was saying, a long period of time for the industry
to acclimatise to the idea of it, but we just think it is inevitable
one way or the other, and above all else we want clarity. You
mentioned a level playing field, but that is what we think the
suggestions that are proposed do not bring. It will be a mass
confusion for consumers, and for operators it will be very difficult
to adapt to the legislation as proposed.
Q316 Charlotte Atkins: I believe
in Mr Hayward's evidence that you are talking about having a 20%
floor space smoking area. What worries me about that is how can
you have 20% smoke-free, and, indeed, you are talking about a
meter from the bar, because in my experience air tends to move,
and whether it is 20% smoky, it does not mean that 80% is smoke-free.
Likewise, with the whole issue of so-called smoking carriages,
unless people are going to vault into the top of them, you have
to open the door and smoke comes out, and people smelling of smoke
has an impact. When we were in Ireland the other day someone told
me that it is getting to the stage where if someone goes into
a home and smells of smoke there is almost a sort of, "Oh,
dear, they smell of smoke." That is an issue, that if you
do have overwhelmingly a smoke-free environment people are going
to notice the smell of smoke, and, unless you are going to have
a wind-tunnel effect, I do not really see how you can make one
area smoky and one area smoke-free when often it is not feasible
to have a physical barrier between the two?
Mr Hayward: It is a question,
as has already been said, of getting people used to the change.
What is interesting is that by introducing progressively smoke-free
areas what you actually do is make consumers change themselves.
There is a pub very close to here which introduced no smoking
at the bar and which I use quite regularly. What is striking about
it is that the number of smokers, the proportion of customers
who smoke, has gone down throughout the whole of the pub. Scientifically
you are absolutely right, but it is a question of changing attitudes
over a period of time, and it is quite striking how the introduction
of a smoke-free area induces a much more marked level of behaviour
than one would actually presume.
Mr Bish: I would not agree. I
think that the 1998 White Paper suggested that ventilation was
a contributory factor in the solutions. The science definitely
exists. The wind-tunnel point is not right. You do not need wind-tunnels
to move air around. There is nothing magical about the particulates
and carcinogens and things like that that will linger where all
other contaminants will be removed. The technology exists for
operating theatres with negative or positive pressure to keep
them clear. The ventilation industry exists. It is an enormous
industry. It must be doing something right somewhere. The Health
and Safety Executive offer workers exposure limits and define
those, and the ventilation industry provides the kit to deliver
those answers. I think, perhaps, there was a time when we believed,
in the trade, that ventilation was a solution absolutely in itself.
That was then. This is now. Smoking cessation is the issue, but
ventilation has a role to play. It can help, but the industry
is there to help and advise government.
Q317 Charlotte Atkins: Ventilation
does not remove all the harmful effects of second-hand smoke,
does it?
Mr Bish: Air replacement replaces
air, it replaces everything in it. Nothing clings on, it just
moves out.
Q318 Charlotte Atkins: The evidence
we have had indicates that the particulates are still there and
that they are still damaging. It may make the air feel nicer,
and so on, but actually it does not take out the harmful impact.
If we are talking about staff, clearly if you have smoking areas
or if you have smoking carriages, what about the staff? They have
still got to go and clear those areas. Are they given special
dispensation? How do they go in there and clear them up, unless,
of course, you are going to leave them piled high with cigarette
ends, which maybe a solution? Hopefully no-one will go in there
anyway, but if we are talking about staff, how do we align our
concern about the health of staff and asking them to go in and
clean areas piled high with cigarette ends and also with smoke?
Mr Bish: There is a solution there.
If we want to do it, there is a way. The ventilation industry
can do it. You will get complete air changes, including leaving
the room unoccupied for a very good time to allow the air change.
That will happen. That is just science. It works. It is whether
we want it to work is the point and whether we can afford it to
work.
Q319 Charlotte Atkins: That is the
issue. The cost issue, of course, is huge. Mr Payne was talking
about 38% of the smallest pubs going out of business. They are
not going to be able to spend possibly thousand of pounds on ventilation?
Mr Bish: It is very difficult
for them.
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