Examination of Witnesses (Questions 580-599)
CAROLINE FLINT
MP, FIONA MACTAGGART
MP AND MR
NICK ADKIN
24 NOVEMBER 2005
Q580 Mr Burstow: You are
saying it could be as good as if we had a comprehensive ban?
Mr Adkin: It could be as good.
Caroline Flint: Can I just add
to that. The reason for that is anybody who is involved in trying
to encourage people to give up smoking knows that one part of
it is issues around restrictions but another part of it is what
services we provide for people to give up, other things we are
doing through education in our schools and other factors, as I
said through antenatal clinics and so forth, to combine together
to provide that package. It has to be acknowledged that we have
made huge inroads in this area over the last eight years and I
feel, importantly, that is one of the reasons why we have the
lowest level of smoking across the United Kingdom.
Mr Burstow: Can we have a note on those
figures?
Chairman: I do not think we are disputing
that. I have to say one thing, Minister. We had the Minister for
the Northern Ireland Office sitting in that chair not a short
while ago who told us the reason he stopped smoking was because
he had been out to America and he could not smoke except when
he stood on the pavement, and it was the incentive that he wanted
to get off his particular habit. Could I just finish on this issue
of Dr John Reid because I am not exactly sure where this came
from. The only thing I have to say about it is that the Deputy
CMO was asked about this at an earlier session, that we were told
by at least three witnesses when we went to Dublin and took formal
evidence that they disputed what Dr John Reid had said about the
increase in smoking in homes in Ireland, they said it just was
not true. In fact, they used language firmer than I have just
used. I thought maybe I ought to get that on the record. We will
try and tease that out at some stage. I think we are moving on
to David now.
Q581 Mr Amess: As you
might have gathered, we had this remarkable evidence session with
the Chief Medical Officer this morning. He might have been slightly
reticent in answering one of my questions but he certainly was
not reticent in telling the Committee that he took this issue
so seriously he had actually considered resignation, and that
was a big surprise to all of us. I understand entirely the points
that you have made about taking public opinion with you, but to
many of us it seems as far as the Government is concerned the
issue of clubs and how you treat clubs is at the heart of all
this. Could you tell the Committee how many clubs are there where
smoking will be permitted? From a personal point of view, will
that include Conservative Clubs?
Caroline Flint: I will try to
get you the exact figures on the clubs, if that is helpful. I
think in terms of the licensed area, what percentage of the licensed
trade is it, Nick?
Mr Adkin: About 20,000 membership
clubs but we do not know within them what their current policies
are.
Caroline Flint: Of course, there
are lots of very different clubs. There are the Working Men's
Clubs, Conservative Clubs, Labour Clubs, rugby clubs, cricket
clubs. The issue that defines them all is do they qualify under
very particular legislation that is applied to membership clubs.
That is very important because over the summer people have said
to me, "Does this mean anybody can set themselves up as a
club?" one night's membership and all of that. As far as
I am concerned, that certainly is not the case. We are talking
about situations where there are clubs that are in line with the
legislation, they have a constitution, it is run by the members.
For example, if you take a lot of licensed Conservative Clubs,
Labour Clubs, Working Men's Clubs and so forth, they have to have
a committee elected that oversees the licensing aspects of the
establishment, including the purchasing of the beer and what have
you. In relation to the accusation that lots of pubs will follow
this route, I cannot see many licensees in the commercial trade
deciding that they will let their clientele take over what would
effectively be the management of their establishment. That was
one of the reasons why it was felt that because these are clubs
that are run by individual members rather than, if you like, a
commercial establishment that is much more open access, there
should be the provision for them to make the choice themselves.
Part of what we are addressing is how we do make sure that in
a democratic way the individual members of those establishments
do have a say on whether they should be smoke-free or not. I would
just like to add, the issue around the area around the bar is
something that would apply to those establishments too.
Q582 Mr Amess: If you
were able to provide us with the figures before we can complete
the report we would be grateful.
Caroline Flint: I will try to
do that.
Q583 Mr Amess: Would you
also be able to tell us if any of those clubs would be exempt
from the ban if they were serving food?
Caroline Flint: No, not if they
fall within the definition of the legislation in terms of a licensed
membership club. I think that is right.
Mr Adkin: Membership clubs have
a general exclusion but it is the bar area which will apply.
Q584 Chairman: Would you
ban a staged area if there was a turn on in a Working Men's Club?
Caroline Flint: That has not been
part of our consideration, it has been the bar area, although
I know people have voiced their views around issues around musicians
in clubs.
Q585 Mr Amess: There has
been a point about unfair competition made by the hospitality
industry in that it will put pubs that serve food at a significant
disadvantage with this exemption. Do you share these views that
the exemption could drive many small pubs out of business? We
had some interesting evidence in Ireland on that point.
Caroline Flint: Are you talking
about in relation to small pubs that serve food?
Q586 Mr Amess: The hospitality
industry believes that exempting membership clubs will produce
unfair competition.
Caroline Flint: That has been
raised but, to be honest, membership clubs already have provisions
that apply to them that do not apply to the commercial sector
in different ways and I think there has always been that tension
in relation to these types of clubs. The other aspect of this
is people join membership clubs for certain reasons: they want
to be associated with the Conservative Party or the Labour Party
or a trade union, or they pay for the rugby club or the cricket
club or so forth. There is often a whole host of issues that attracts
customers to that establishment in the same way there is a whole
host of issues that attracts people to go to Walkabout or another
establishment in terms of the commercial sector. I do not think
it is that clear—which some people have expressed a fear
about—that there would be a mass exodus down to the Conservative
Club—I hope not—
Q587 Mr Amess: I hope
there will be.
Caroline Flint:— or what
have you because there are a number of issues to do with social
groups, the aims of the club, what it is there for, and historical
issues as much as anything else. As I have said, we are going
to be monitoring all aspects of this as and when the legislation
comes into being.
Mr Amess: I think time is moving rapidly
and we are going to deal with compliance next.
Q588 Chairman: Can I ask
you one more question in that area, Minister, and then David can
come back in. We had evidence last week from the British Hospitality
Association describing a pub that serves lunch and then stops
serving at three afternoon and is a drink only pub for a number
of hours and then may serve what he described as a "heavy
dinner", and I am not sure that is nutritionally or calorifically
balanced, and then by ten at night it becomes drink only because
all the meals go off. Presumably the regulations, when we see
them, will tell us that would not be a smoking pub, or would it
be a smoking pub on some occasions?
Caroline Flint: Our view and direction
is that anywhere that serves food at any point in the day—we
are discussing issues around definitions and what have you—if
they serve food at lunchtime and not in the evening would still
be in the total smoke ban.
Q589 Chairman: Throughout
the day?
Caroline Flint: Yes.
Q590 Charlotte Atkins: You
indicated that membership clubs serving food would be subject
to the ban.
Caroline Flint: No, I did not
say that. What I said was membership clubs will be subject to
our discussion on the area around the bar.
Q591 Charlotte Atkins: Thank
you for that clarification.
Caroline Flint: To reduce the
smoke in that area.
Q592 Mr Amess: We are
now moving on to compliance which is also at the heart of this.
I very much agreed with your point of you taking the general public
with you because you have only got to look at people driving along
in their motorcars on their mobile phones, which just is not working
unfortunately. In Ireland we were told the key to compliance is
clarity. What does the Government believe the key factor to be?
Caroline Flint: I think clarity
is important but also it is about what public opinion feel. In
Sweden, for example, they have had their smoking ban in place
since 1 June this year, they allow specified smoking rooms, and
there have been six breaches of the law so far, although that
has obviously been for the summer period and they will be looking
at what happens in winter. Obviously we have to look at how we
can make sure it is clear and we are going to be talking about
how people know when they are going into an establishment whether
it is a smoke-free establishment or not. I do think part and parcel
of all of this is about people being supportive. I do believe
that our proposals will contribute to even greater support, which
I think is a good thing.
Q593 Mr Amess: I certainly
hope you are right. We have had a lot of evidence telling us that
a complete ban would be much easier to enforce than a partial
one. Do you accept that evidence?
Caroline Flint: I think there
are a lot of areas of legislation which are attractive if you
could just have a broad brush approach. We have been upfront about
that. In our draft Regulatory Impact Assessment we did demonstrate,
in terms of the costs, that the costs would be less if there was
a complete ban. There are a number of different factors we take
into account when we are making any legislation and what we feel
is right. I suppose, yes, in some ways it would be simpler but
that does not necessarily mean at this time it is the best way
forward.
Q594 Mr Amess: Finally,
can you tell us something about what the levels of penalties will
be?
Caroline Flint: Yes, in terms
of the penalties we are looking at £50 in terms of an individual
and I think it is £200 in terms of a business. Obviously
we have taken advice from the Home Office on some of those issues
and we have tried to look at what are some of the equivalent fines
in those areas. I know that is considerably lower than in Ireland
but, again, we are not in this sense trying to criminalise people,
we are trying to get their support and, in effect, to change their
behaviour.
Q595 Dr Stoate: I think
the Government does deserve a great degree of praise for what
you have done and what has been achieved so far. I think it is
very good news that we are going down the road towards a pretty
wide-ranging ban. I have to say, however, again, I am not totally
happy and personally I would prefer a total ban for all the reasons
that have been said: it is more logical; it is easier to enforce;
the public would understand the policy very well, although I understand,
also, the public would not necessarily be entirely in favour of
that. My big issue is around public health. One of the biggest
issues of public health is health inequalities and one of the
biggest issues of health inequalities, of course, is the difference
between smokers and non-smokers in terms of public health. Given
that a quarter of smokers never collect their pensions because
they are dead before they get there it is a really major public
health issue. We have talked about the effect on bar staff, workers
and the protection of those people, I am very concerned about
the protection of the customers themselves. In Spain, for example,
it has always been felt, in fact it was until recently a legal
requirement to serve food with alcohol, you could not be offered
alcohol in a bar in Spain without food being provided for free
as part of your drink. The Spanish people understood that food
reduces the harmful effects of alcohol very effectively. What
I am concerned about is that if we effectively reduce the numbers
of pubs that serve food, because some of them will stop serving
food in order to do this, it will make it more likely for people
to drink more on an empty stomach and less likely to eat food,
in fact damage their own health even more than they do already
with the smoking.
Caroline Flint: Yes. I know there
are considerable concerns about this and we are going to monitor
what the differentials will mean. In pubs that do not serve food—and
when I talk about food I am talking in terms of what I consider
a meal like food—there will still be the provision for crisps
and snacks and we are working our way through that. The other
issue there is about how pubs work in terms of responsible drinking
too, to be honest. Today, of all days, that is something I think
everyone is thinking about in terms of what pubs do in terms of
how they sell drink, how people buy drink and, to be honest, how
people go out and choose to go out and get drunk. I am afraid,
even at the moment with the food establishments that there are,
there are some people who will go out with it in their head to
get drunk even if food is offered on a plate. I do not think necessarily
there is a direct correlation there but that is something we will
be looking at. Also, for other reasons, there are a lot of establishments,
from the big chains to smaller pubs, that will still see food
as an important part of what they are and who they are as a family
pub. We know there has been a significant trend and change in
the pub sector through trying to be more family-orientated and
I think you cannot be a family-orientated pub without having food
there, to be honest. I think we have to watch that. As I said
before, on the health inequalities issue, you will know as well
as I do that there are a whole basket of issues in relation to
health inequalities. I think issues around poverty, not just in
terms of what people have coming in, in terms of money, poverty
of their environment, poverty of what they want out of life, is
a contributing factor to how people see themselves and their health.
One of the reasons why we have to address these different issues
is to tackle not only smoking but alcohol and issues around obesity
too. That is why our direction and drive—and this is very
much part and parcel of choosing health—is to focus not
on a one-size-fits-all public health policy but one that really
gets into what is happening within families and communities to
increase the take-up of the health opportunities which I am afraid
more affluent sections of the population are clearly taking up
and literally running with.
Q596 Dr Stoate: I entirely
agree with that but part of the Government's responsibility to
public health is, of course, to legislate to improve the public
health. We heard from the Northern Ireland Minister, Shaun Woodward,
that he felt that in Ireland it was very clear that the overall
total ban on smoking would be a very significant improvement to
public health. People would see that you just simply could not
go out and smoke, therefore you were less likely to smoke when
you were out, therefore smoking became a more difficult thing
to do. In his case, in fact, it led him to give up smoking altogether
because he found it so difficult to smoke in places like New York,
he simply felt it was not worth smoking at all. If we are going
to send a public health message out there it needs to be one that
is completely impossible to misinterpret. We need to make it absolutely
clear you do not smoke in public places or in work places, full
stop.
Caroline Flint: I think we are
sending out a very strong public message. We are saying to all
those people who are currently in workplaces where they have a
smoking room or where they just allow smoking, it is not going
to happen any more. We are sending a very strong message out about
what should be happening in our leisure establishments. We all
know that there are leisure establishments, some in the public
sector and some in the private sector, that allow smoking on their
premises. We are sending out a very, very strong message and I
do not think anyone should be in any doubt about that. What we
are talking about is a very small area where we feel that is an
area which we need to monitor and develop in the future but we
are not there yet. All I would say to you is—and I am not
saying this is about a popularity contest—I have seen the
Northern Ireland evidence, and they had a consultation and, just
like our formal consultation, overwhelmingly numbers of people
were in favour of a full ban but I have not seen some of the surveys
that we have done in relation to public opinion on exactly where
restrictions and bans should take place. We have had to look at
a whole number of issues in terms of forming our opinion. As I
have said before, we are not alone in this, many countries in
the world that have already gone as far as we are intending to
go went through that same process, including the Californias and
the New Yorks which are held up as such shining examples.
Q597 Dr Stoate: One of
the biggest issues we have got about smoking now is smoking by
young people, and it is teenagers who are the only group in this
country where numbers are increasing, particularly teenage girls,
even more so than teenage boys. They are the very groups of people
who are likely to be going out to pubs and clubs over the next
few years, so surely that is the very group we should be targeting.
This must send out a message which is not going to encourage them
to give up smoking?
Caroline Flint: A lot of the pubs
and clubs they go to serve food and, therefore, they are going
to be affected by that. Alongside that is the work we do in finding
better messages to reach young people. All of us know that sometimes
when you talk to young people, particularly teenagers and those
in their early 20s, unless they have had an experience in their
family, messages about "You will die from this" often
do not have as much weight, for example, as "It is not very
attractive". That is one of the reasons why earlier this
year we had our smoking campaign aimed at those under 24 which
was the one of the guy in the pub seeing an attractive woman but
then being put off because basically she smelt of cigarettes.
We found through our work with young people some of those messages
were very important to them as they are developing their relationships
in their teens and early 20s and it was the hook to get them thinking
about what smoking is doing to them. Again, I think we have to
do more and that is why the blueprint programme that we sponsor
with the Home Office and the DfES was trialling out in some schools
over the last couple of years a new approach to substance misuse
which includes not only illegal drugs but also tackles issues
around alcohol, prescription drugs in the home, glue, butane and,
of course, cigarettes as well to see if we can have a better approach
to these issues with a younger age group. Of course some of our
colleagues are also lobbying us on other issues in relation to
young people and smoking too.
Q598 Dr Naysmith: Minister,
one of the things which has been obvious throughout this inquiry
that we have been carrying out is the need for clarity in this
legislation, and also some of the difficulties of enforcing it
given the way it is set out now. We are talking about things like
food versus non-food, pubs that might do something different at
lunchtime from the evening, the membership of clubs and all the
difficulties that might throw up. One of the reasons for it clearly
is the exemptions are being made by regulation, and we do not
have the regulations yet. When are we going to get the regulations?
Will it be before the Bill completes its Committee stage in Parliament,
for instance?
Caroline Flint: We are working
in terms of developing the regulations. I think the important
aspect of this is all the major regulations will be subject to
affirmative resolution. Some people might say "You cannot
amend affirmative resolutions" but I think it is important
that is a process that is there, to have a debate at each stage
as these regulations come forward.
Q599 Dr Naysmith: It could
mean the regulations are not amendable by Parliament at all if
we do not get them early enough.
Caroline Flint: Again, that puts
a responsibility on myself and the Department to make sure that
in developing the regulations we do take on board all these issues
so that we can present regulations that do have the support of
Parliament. I think that is an important part of the process.
Obviously we are hoping, as we proceed, to be able to publish
regulations so that parliamentarians in both Houses have an opportunity
to see the direction we feel we are going in and how we are trying
to address, I acknowledge, some of these issues around definition
so we can get as much clarity as is possible.
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