Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320-339)
MR ROB
HAYWARD OBE, MR
JOHN HUTSON,
MR NICK
BISH, MR
BOB COTTON
OBE AND MR
TONY PAYNE
17 NOVEMBER 2005
Q320 Charlotte Atkins: The big chains
might able to do that, but it just depends if they have decided
to go down the other route.
Mr Hutson: We are fortunate because
most of our pubs have been built in the last ten years and have
been converted, so they do not have all the grade two listed building
aspects which many pubs, particularly in London, would have to
face. We spend about £150,000, on average, on air-conditioning,
and we change the air 20 times an hour at peak times. Even with
all that, on a Friday night it is very difficult to stop the air
from the smoking area drifting into the non-smoking area, but
by and large it does work, and Nicky is right, our pubs actually
are quite smoke free, but it cannot be guaranteed. I was in premises
yesterday and the staff, unfortunately, had turned it off and
it was very, very smoky. The only way to guarantee it is to ban
smoking, I am afraid.
Mr Payne: Even our members who
are on low returns themselves have spent a lot of money. As I
said before, 30 years ago we got the smog, i.e. full of smoke;
today you do get clean air in a lot of public houses and I think
it is important to understand that it will improve over a period
of time. The only thing is, if we get some assurances from the
Government on this people would invest more money to make the
pubs even more health conscious.
Q321 Jim Dowd: Mr Hutson, when you
say you convert Wetherspoon's pubs to non-smoking, there is no
process, is there? You just say it is going non-smoking.
Mr Hutson: There has been a process
involved, surrounding capital investment and marketing of the
pub. Because we are conscious of the fact that we have been going
ahead of legislation, so we have had to try and create a bit more
impact, and what we have noticed is that food sales do rise. It
has cost us, on average, about £50,000 per pub, primarily
investment in new kitchen equipment, and we have repainted the
pubs and in many cases re-carpeted, but certainly cleaned the
carpet, so that when people walk in there is no residue of smoke
whatsoever.
Q322 Jim Dowd: What kind of notice
do you give customers?
Mr Hutson: We have been giving
customers three months notice in terms of a date, and then, with
a month to go, every day we do a count-down.
Q323 Jim Dowd: As a commercial organisational
do you sell tobacco on the premises?
Mr Hutson: At the moment we sell
tobacco, yes.
Q324 Jim Dowd: Even in the non-smoking
pubs?
Mr Hutson: In the pubs that we
have converted, it is a mixture. If we have an outside area, and
we have endeavoured to get an outside area everywhere—and
you have been to Ireland yourselves: you will have heard of the
importance of trying to get an outside area if you want to retain
a lot of the smoking trade—we keep selling tobacco for people
who want to go outside. We have not taken a moral issue on smoking.
If you want to smoke, fine. It is a legal thing to do. That is
why we thought, "Well, if you are going to smoke we will
provide facilities outside for you—heaters, canopies, things
like that—and we will still sell cigarettes for you.
Q325 Jim Dowd: Just a general question
to anybody really. My calculation of what you have been saying
is that the distinction the Government has chosen, if there is
not to be a total ban, is going to be onerous and difficult. Would
it be, in your view, better to simply designate certain premises
as smoking permitted under restricted circumstances and others
just as non-smoking?
Mr Hayward: If you are saying
certain premises, specifically a venue as against another one
further down the street, that will cause the problems that John
has just referred to, because people will migrate, so that is
not the route that we would prefer. Any exemptions, clearly, as
I said earlier on, have a regulatory burden. We personally have
indicated that we would prefer some form of segregated smoking
rooms, and we will work with whatever clear option is introduced,
but it has to be clear and operable across an enormous range of
the industry: because, as Bob Cotton has said, we are talking
about a mixture in the hospitality sector now which just did not
apply 20 or 30 years ago.
Q326 Chairman: Is it not the case
that any segregation—the smoking carriage is the recent
debate—if we are to believe it they cannot get any consensus
on that at cabinet level either—just brings the problems
about Tony Payne's smaller pubs and everything else. It seems
under those circumstances that . . . Is not your answer to this
in a sense, maybe reluctantly in as much as you preferred a voluntary
approach, that a comprehensive ban would be more certain for you
as a group and as individuals representing organisations? Would
that be an unfair assumption to make from what we have heard and
from the written evidence that we have taken as well?
Mr Hayward: I think it is a conclusion
that you can draw, but I think in society, whatever field you
are talking about, whether it is smoking or anything else, you
either have a complete ban or complete freedom and anywhere between
those two imposes a regulatory burden with which one has to work.
Yes, the simplistic solution on anything in life, whether it is
stopping people from driving over Westminster Bridge, that is
a clear decision, or else you allow them to go at 80 miles an
hour and anything you impose in between has implications. The
simplest solutions are always the extreme ones.
Q327 Chairman: You represent a lot
of people, and all of you, one way or another, represent some
quite small business. Is not the great fear that if it is not
a comprehensive ban, it throws this whole question about switching
from food to drink, or whatever, into great confusion within the
hospitality trade?
Mr Cotton: Absolutely. Whatever
we have said, all along clarity is absolutely essential in this,
fairness, but also recognition that it is about the protection
of the employees wherever they work. If you are in a small business
or in a chain business, the fact you might be treating employees
differently in one place to another—I think in five years'
time it will be very difficult standing in front of the red robed
judge saying, "I recognised the problems for that particular
employee and we took action, but not for that employee."
I think you will be laughed at, quite frankly.
Q328 Chairman: Is that what you heard
in Scotland?
Mr Cotton: Yes, indeed, and I
also went to Ireland and I have seen the impact in Ireland where
I think it has worked extremely well and the whole sector has
continued to grow. I am talking about tourism, hospitality, leisure
in its totality.
Chairman: We did add to it for a couple
of days last week, I have to say.
Q329 Mr Burstow: And we are not the
only ones who have been there to add to the expansion in the tourist
trade. There seem to be a lot of people going to the Republic
to learn about what they are doing. I wanted to pick up on something
else we heard whilst we were in Dublin. It was put to us, I think,
primarily by the Hospitality Association in the Republic, but
they were saying it was something being experienced, anecdotally
at least, across all parts of the hospitality industry, and that
was the implications for the costs of maintenance of premises.
The argument was that in environments which are predominantly
smoking environments there are increased costs of maintenance—repainting
to remove the obvious tarring effects that cigarette smoke causes
and various other things—and that the costs of maintenance
went down; and this was something that the Hospitality Association
was putting forward as a benefit from this. I wonder whether anyone
here would sign up to the proposition we heard from the Republic's
Hospitality Association or whether you say that was an incorrect
assumption?
Mr Cotton: It is a clear issue
for hotels. Quite frankly, cleaning a hotel bedroom is substantially
easier when people have not smoked, and there are particular issues
which I think we have given in evidence to you about how you treat
hotels. The Irish solution is a very good one, Scotland is almost
there, but it is particularly important, and it has reduced the
cleaning costs certainly for hotels. I would not comment on pubs.
Mr Hutson: In the ones we have
converted we have seen already, costs do come down, but I think
for us that is more as a result of change in the customers that
come to the pub as opposed to anything else. You get fewer heavy
drinkers.
Q330 Mr Burstow: Right; so you get
less spillage?
Mr Hutson: More food customers,
fewer heavy drinkers, and they tend to respect the premises better.
Mr Hayward: One of the reasons
why we were arguing for a period of time, because some costs do
clearly go down, other costs go up. We were asked by the Department
of Health in relation to the question of food the implications
since, the Chairman indicated, there has been this huge shift.
You have got large numbers of pubs who have invested very heavily
in some from of food supplies, food refrigeration, food preparation,
et cetera, and those are costs which in the short-term they would
clearly face in terms of making the shift from one side to the
other. There are clearly some changes which would be beneficial
and others which are disadvantageous.
Q331 Mr Burstow: Mr Bish, have you
any observations?
Mr Bish: Nothing more. Obviously
it just weighs in the balance with the declining income. I mean
if Wetherspoon's income has gone down by 7%, they are jolly glad
not to have so much cost in refurbishment and cleaning. It is
as simple as that. It is a profit and loss issue, but it is weighed
in the balance.
Q332 Mr Burstow: It is as simple
as that in as far as it was presented that way to us in the Republic,
but the Republic's most recent figures show that there is actually
an upturn in terms of sales of alcohol both in licensed premises
and to take home. Mr Bish, you were talking in response to Charlotte
Atkins' questions about ventilation, saying that this was at least
a partial solution to this. I wondered if you had any technical
papers or research papers that backed up that position that we
might be sent so that we can have a look at that. It might be
useful just to see if there are any robust technical assertions
that would support your proposition today?
Mr Bish: Yes, the University of
Glamorgan, Professor Andrew Geens, has conducted extensive surveys
and I believe it is now out for peer review. I am not sure when
that response is coming in, but through the contacts that I have
I would be very glad to furnish that to the Committee?
Q333 Chairman: I do not know, Mr
Bish, if you have been to Ireland. We probed this issue in Ireland
and could find no evidence of it whatsoever.
Mr Bish: That there was any ventilation.
Chairman: There is ventilation which
makes the place more pleasant; it is the issue of protecting the
health of the workforce that we were trying to probe, and that
was the evidence that was lacking in our visit to the republic
of Ireland. Richard.
Q334 Dr Taylor: Thank you. It is
really just to clarify a point Mr Payne made, and I apologise
if I did not quite understand it, but you were talking about 38%
of pubs closing down at the smaller end of the market. Was that
with the total ban or the partial ban as proposed?
Mr Payne: A total ban. Thirty
per cent of our members, and we are talking about the people that
returned it, said that 38% would have to close down with a total
ban.
Q335 Dr Taylor: So if it was a partial
ban, as the Government are proposing, would that therefore be
a lesser percentage.
Mr Payne: It would be lesser,
but the difficulty is when we talk about non-food elements, say
a smoking area, loads of public houses do things, and it has been
brought up to my attention that they provide sandwiches for the
games team, so that would be stopped. Nothing has been clarified
yet, and I think there is a lot of other points that need sorting
out. If that type of thing was stopped it would cause more problems.
Q336 Dr Taylor: So, despite the risk
to these 38% at the smaller end of the market, you would still
be on the side of everybody else, that it is clarity and a total
ban that is the only workable option?
Mr Payne: No, we have said all
along that as far as we are concerned, like Mr Cotton said earlier—Mr
Cotton mentioned earlier the situation why we could not have food,
say, 12.00 until 2.00 p.m. and then a smoking pub later on. That
type of thing I think would help rather than either talking about
just food-led or smoke-led. I think I that would help everybody
going down that way or something like that, where licensees could,
in fact, make the customers aware what service is being given
at certain times of the day.
Q337 Dr Taylor: Can I come back?
We have heard "clarity", we have heard "protection
of employees", we have heard "level playing field".
Is there any way other than a total ban of getting there?
Mr Hayward: We believe there is.
In terms of smoking rooms, we believe you can achieve it with
food, and I indicated earlier that there is a regulatory implication,
but we believe you can achieve an acceptable route.
Mr Hutson: Our view is that it
is as simple as it appears to you and that everywhere else in
the world it has been a simple solution: a complete ban and anything
else is unworkable?
Mr Bish: We believe in self-regulation
and responding to the customers. We think that it is likely there
will be a ban at some stage. We, above all, want time to prepare
for it, time and clarity.
Mr Cotton: Quite clearly a total
ban is inevitable, as in Ireland, as in several countries in Europe.
All I ask for is time to ensure that the customer adapts to it
but that we have complete clarity.
Mr Payne: A total ban, I am afraid,
would cause chaos for the rural and community public houses and
the customers, and that is the most important thing: the public
that we look after.
Q338 Chairman: Do any of you represent
people from Northern Ireland?
Mr Hutson: We have some pubs over
there.
Q339 Chairman: What do you think
of the Government's announcement in October that we are going
to legislate for a complete ban in Northern Ireland?
Mr Cotton: I am staggered that
with no devolution to Northern Ireland direct through from Westminster,
but we can have a government that puts a total ban in Northern
Ireland and does not in England.
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