Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
MR SHAUN
WOODWARD MP, MS
PAT OSBORNE
AND MR
JIM GIBSON
24 NOVEMBER 2005
Q500 Chairman: Is that
since the announcement of 17 October? Has that changed public
opinion at all, in your view?
Mr Woodward: That is since the
announcement of 17 October.
Chairman: David?
Q501 Mr Amess: You have
sort of answered it already but was a partial ban with the exemptions
that is being considered by the Department of Health in England
considered, and if it was considered why was it rejected by the
Northern Ireland Office?
Mr Woodward: I think the first
thing to say really is that what we are doing in Northern Ireland
reflects on the merits of devolution. I say that because we did
and we were very, very minded to look at Northern Ireland as a
discrete entity in relation to public opinion and public support
on this issue in the context of Northern Ireland. Very specifically,
it was important for us to look at what had happened in the Republic
of Ireland where, as you know, they had already introduced comprehensive
controls on where people smoke at an earlier stage and, undoubtedly,
I think the publicity around the introduction in the Republic
had a huge influence on public opinion in Northern Ireland. That
I think partly accounts for why there is a considerable disparity
between the level of public support in England for a comprehensive
set of controls as opposed to that in Northern Ireland. By the
time I became Minister for Health in Northern Ireland in May,
I think the public there was ready for a comprehensive ban, and
I think that needs to be distinguished from the position in England
where I am not so sure that the public is ready for a comprehensive
ban, but that is a decision for Health Ministers in England and,
as I say, that is part of the merit of devolution. In Northern
Ireland people there wanted this and we, I think, fulfilled what
they wanted.
Q502 Mr Amess: So a comprehensive
ban is much more popular in Northern Ireland, you would judge,
than it would be in England at the moment?
Mr Woodward: I think it is very
difficult to make that judgment about England without being close
to the health issues as a Health Minister would be in England.
What I can say is that in Northern Ireland my officials have done
a huge amount of work in the run-up period to the first announcement
that we made in July and then the subsequent announcement in October,
and their work pointed to the fact that this was going to have
a massive level of public support. It was still a risk because
of course until you actually announce it you have no idea whether
or not that really will come to fruition, but I think what was
quite clear was when we announced a partial ban in the summer
of this year people felt that we should go much, much further.
We then conducted more consultation and we also went to have a
look at the effects on hospitality and tourism in Dublin. We also
went to New York to look at the effects of the controls there.
All that led us to believe that with public opinion so ready for
this in Northern Ireland, the right thing to do was to go the
whole hog, which is what we announced in October.
Q503 Mr Amess: Something
that we found interesting when we visited Dublin two weeks ago
was it was suggested to us that you personally had changed your
mind on this; that you had come to the issue with a particular
view supporting your English colleagues and had changed it. We
have just had an absolutely electric session this morning when
the Chief Medical Officer at one stage very clearly told us that
he felt out of line completely with the Government's policy and
indeed had even thought of resigning. Given that you have changed
your view on the matter (this is what we were told), are you behind
the scenes, and I know you are deploying the argument of devolution,
trying to influence your English colleagues on this issue?
Mr Woodward: Behind the scenes
I am not trying to influence my English colleagues. They must
make their own decisions about health issues in England because
I believe it is right that the Health Minister and officials should
make the decision about Northern Ireland separately, and I think
to the credit of Health Ministers in England they did not try
to influence our decision in Northern Ireland. I understand why
the Republic may have reported the influence they had on my decision
in the way that they did. It is not entirely accurate. What we
announced in the summer of this year is that whatever happened
we would have a partial ban. What we said in the summer of this
year was that we may need to go further and we may want to conduct
further consultation and see what the effects of a comprehensive
ban had been, as I said, on hospitality, on employment and indeed
on health issues generally, and we were undoubtedly impressed
by the way that the ban had been introduced in Dublin and had
not had a negative effect on employment and had not had a negative
effect on hospitality, and certainly not in the way that those
people who were shroud-waving before the introduction of these
controls had suggested would be the effect. They suggested it
would be cataclysmic for employment in the hospitality sector,
they thought that alcohol sales would plummet, and that it would
not have the support of the public. What Dublin showed us was
that was not the case and New York in fact showed an increase
in employment in the hospitality sector since they introduced
controls on where people smoke. Again, we were impressed by the
fact that it would not have a dire effect and, indeed, it may
even have a positive effect. In both places we were also impressed
by the arguments made to us by people who did not smoke but who
said they were now going to bars and restaurants for the first
time because they were much more pleasant places to be.
Q504 Chairman: Do you
think it is very likely that that influence on the public in Northern
Ireland by what was going off in the Republic is likely to happen
in the rest of the United Kingdom in view of the ban that will
be coming into place in Scotland in a few months' time?
Mr Woodward: I think the important
thing to recognise in this, Chairman, is that this is an area
where we, first of all, said that this is a policy about protecting
workers. We did not feel that we wanted a nanny state in Northern
Ireland which said to people you cannot smoke in your own home.
If you want to smoke in the privacy of your own home you can go
and do that. What we were concerned to do was to protect workers
in the workplace and I think what the public, certainly in Northern
Ireland, go along with is the idea that you have the right to
be protected in the workplace and in public places. Do I think
that the long-term effects of this would be to influence the public
in England if we go along the route that we are intending to go
in Northern Ireland? Yes I do. My personal view is that within
a matter of five years or ten years, even if England goes a different
route to Northern Ireland, which Health Ministers must decide,
and rightly so, I suspect that we will move to more comprehensive
controls. It may not be that the time is right yet. When I say
that what is terribly important in this is enforcement. There
is no point in having the legislation if the public ignore it.
Again public opinion in Northern Ireland wants to support this
so I do not envisage that we are going to see busloads of environmental
health officers wandering round handing out tickets to people
for smoking because I think the public will respect it. Again,
what Health Ministers have got to judge in England is whether
or not the public is ready for this to work because enforcement
is absolutely critical, and I would judge anyway that the best
kind of enforcement is one where people voluntarily impose it
on themselves and do not smoke.
Q505 Chairman: In principle,
you would like your constituency St Helens South to have the same
protection that Belfast is going to have at some stage?
Mr Woodward: I see where you are
going with that question.
Q506 Chairman: You did
offer a personal opinion, Minister.
Mr Woodward: On a personal level
I will tell you what I think. On a personal level I think, as
somebody who used to smoke, that it would have been better had
I never smoked and I am glad that I have given up. Smoking is
bad for you, there is no question about that. In Northern Ireland
smoking leads to what might well be 3,000 preventable deaths every
year. Smoking is a very, very bad idea. I also think it is important
to remember of course that you do not need legislation to stop
you smoking. If people want to they can actually stop people from
smoking in their premises tomorrow in Northern Ireland, they have
not got to wait for the legislation. In terms of my own constituents,
to answer your question, my advice would be to everybody in my
constituency do not smoke because it is a bad thing. I am not
sure yet that England is ready to impose the kind of controls
on where people smoke in the way that people are ready in Northern
Ireland.
Q507 Mr Burstow: You were
talking just now about the issue of enforceability and enforcement
and the need to have some degree of consent for that enforcement
to be effective. One of the points that has been put to us in
an earlier session we have had today around enforcement is the
extent to which the complexity of the regime you are trying to
enforce makes enforceability more difficult. When you were looking
at the options that you canvassed earlier this year, including
this intermediate option of a partial ban, what sort of advice
were you receiving about the affordability and complexity of making
that method work?
Mr Woodward: I think you can make
arguments for and against this issue in any way you want. At the
end of the day we took a view which was that the public wanted
controls on where people smoke in the workplace and public places
to be introduced. On the matter of enforceability, you again come
back to saying is the public behind this? And again I come back
to saying that in Northern Ireland the public were ready for this.
Again it comes back to a judgment about exemptions. We will make
the first few months of next year a specific set of consultations
in relation to this in relation to exemptions. The sorts of places
you have got to think about are prisons, psychiatric institutions,
and you have got to be very careful about this. Obviously an issue
in relation to prisons is law and order. You have got large numbers
of people who smoke. It is important, I am told, for people in
prisons that they are able to smoke. The interesting thing is
that what New York decided to do was to ban smoking in prisons
as well but in Dublin they have not done that, and that is an
interesting difference between Dublin and New York, and we will
be consulting on that because what we have got to do again is
proceed on all of this with consensus and when people are ready.
Psychiatric institutions are another very, very important area
to look at. The route that we may well go down to avoid complexity,
although we have not made a decision on this yet and, as I stress,
we will consult on this, is to actually ask institutions to apply
for an exemption.
Q508 Mr Burstow: Can I
come back, though, to this point about enforcement and ask you
specifically whether or not those who will be charged with enforcing
the regulations you are going to be introducing made any representations
during the consultation stage that you have been talking about
about it being more complicated to enforce effectively a partial
ban compared to a comprehensive ban?
Mr Woodward: We had discussions
with people about that. To be honest, the strength of argument
around the partial ban that was made to us was one made on economic
grounds. That was where the greatest strength of argument came
because one of the things that was said to us in both Dublin and
New York was the unfair advantage you would give with a partial
ban to places that would still continue to permit smoking. One
of the reasons in Dublin they got the support of almost the entire
hospitality trade behind the comprehensive ban on where people
smoked was because they went the whole way..What the trade did
not seem to want was a partial ban, because they thought it would
create unfair competitive advantages.
Q509 Mr Burstow: On your
own statements you have said a partial ban would have meant protecting
workers in some workplaces but not in bars and pubs, and you go
on to pose the question: where is the social justice in that?
Where is the social justice in that?
Mr Woodward: I think that is why
we decided in Northern Ireland we would go the whole way. We were
convinced that we could do it in Northern Ireland because we were
convinced that we had the support of the public behind us. Yes,
there are principled arguments here about social justice, there
are very strong arguments about health inequalities, there is
no doubt that smoking does create health inequalities and in a
place like Northern Ireland, which starts in a very difficult
place at the beginning of this, it exacerbates already a very
difficult situation.
Q510 Mr Burstow: Finally
on ventilation, you rejected the idea of using ventilation as
the way to solve this problem. What evidence did you look at and
what convinced you that ventilation was not the way to go?
Mr Woodward: We again consulted
in Dublin, we again consulted in New York as well as in the context
of Northern Ireland itself, but we were again impressed by the
arguments that said if you think that the overall tide of this
is moving towards eventually whether you do it now or in five
or in ten years' time, bringing in comprehensive controls on where
people smoke, then you have to think about the cost to a small
business of introducing very expensive ventilation. If you are
a small business with a relatively small turnover, introducing
ventilation equipment, which might be cost you anything between
£20-100,000, and then in, let us say, five or ten years time
you introduce legislation which says you are banning smoking entirely
in the premises, it is a pretty unfair burden to put on the businesses,
and certainly, again in the context of Northern Ireland, since
we felt the public eventually would be behind this in a matter
of years, even if not immediately, it would have been a very unfair
thing to have done. There is one other issue which I should probably
raise on ventilation. We were also very impressed by the arguments
given to us when we were in New York by the health officers there
that actually ventilation may remove the smoke but it does not
remove the carcinogens, and, I say this as an ex-smoker, I do
feel very bad about the fact that I do not know what harm I may
have done to people who may have been forced to breathe in my
smoke; and when we were given the statistic that a bar worker
who does not smoke, nonetheless, working in a bar or restaurant
where people do smoke, will in the course of an eight hour shift
breathe in the carcinogens equivalent to him or her smoking a
pack of ten cigarettes a day, it is pretty compelling.
Q511 Jim Dowd: First of
all, may I congratulate you on giving up. For all of those who
have attempted to give up, if you can, I would suggest just about
anybody can! What is the attitude of your policy towards private
clubs?
Mr Woodward: Again, this is an
area where we are going to consult, but our inclination is to
make the comprehensive control and where people smoke in the workplace
and public places apply across the board, which would mean that
if there was an establishment where people were paid to serve
drinks, or whatever, even if that was a private club, that is
a workplace, and we intend to control where people smoke in the
workplace, which would mean that they would not be able to smoke
there.
Q512 Jim Dowd: The other
point you mentioned—it has been put to us as well by the
leisure industry—the dispute about a partial ban giving
a competitive advantage, given the fact that that would have existed
in broader areas, was there any evidence of that, of people who
used to go to pubs in the Republic where they could smoke and
when the ban came in migrating to pubs in the north where they
could smoke?
Mr Woodward: The evidence that
we found came from those organisations which represented bars
and restaurants, and they just said to us that they had consulted
with their members and their members had told them in the run
up to the legislation being introduced in the Republic, that they
did not want an unfair competitive advantage to be created, so
we have relied on their evidence.
Q513 Jim Dowd: What I
am saying is that that unfair advantage, if indeed it was, existed
along the border areas where people tended not to go too far?
Mr Woodward: There is no question
that right now, for example, that people do nip over the border
for a crafty cigarette and, undoubtedly, when we introduce these
controls, they will not be able to do so.
Q514 Dr Naysmith: Minister,
when you were considering the various policy options—stay
as you are, a partial ban, a complete ban—you must have
been in receipt of medical advice. Is that right?
Mr Woodward: We were in receipt
of medical advice.
Q515 Dr Naysmith: Did
that come from Sir Liam Donaldson?
Mr Woodward: No, we had medical
advice from our own Chief Medical Officer in Northern Ireland.
Q516 Dr Naysmith: What
sort of advice were you receiving from the medical officer in
Northern Ireland?
Mr Woodward: Perhaps I will ask
Pat to help me out here.
Ms Osborne: The advice of the
Chief Medical Officer is she has looked at evidence and that smoking
is very harmful. It causes heart disease.
Q517 Dr Naysmith: I think
we probably know all the bad things about smoking by now, but
was the officer recommending a complete ban or a partial ban.
Ms Osborne: Oh yes.
Mr Woodward: Yes. Absolutely.
Q518 Dr Naysmith: A totally
complete ban?
Mr Woodward: A comprehensive ban
on where people smoke in the workplace and in all public places.
Q519 Dr Naysmith: So you
were prepared to go against that medical advice until you popped
over to Ireland and changed your mind. Is that right?
Mr Woodward: Because I do believe
that you have to do this with the public support, and if you do
not have the public support on the kind of level that I think
we have in Northern Ireland the policy will not be effective because
people will break it.
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