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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer: My Lords, on the last day of our reply to the gracious Speech it will be a pleasure to hear three new voices in your Lordships' House during today's maiden speeches. I particularly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who is a west-country neighbour of mine. He is very well known as the chairman of the Countryside Agency but perhaps less well known to most of your Lordships—although much appreciated in Somerset—for the terrific contribution that both he and his wife, Lady Cameron, make to Somerset life. The noble Lord puts into practice the matters to which, no doubt, he will be speaking in your Lordships' House.
In my speech I shall touch briefly on education and health and my noble friends Lady Sharp and Lady Barker will speak on those issues in detail. In speaking on the environment, food and rural affairs, I shall address mainly what is contained in the gracious Speech, although I may touch on other matters.
The Animal Welfare Bill is welcome and certainly long overdue. We look forward to improving standards for companion animals. I hope that when we come to discuss the Bill in your Lordships' House we will consider ending the hypocrisy of the wild bird trade. That was highlighted by the welcome prosecution of those capturing native wild birds in the UK. However, we still allow the importation of wild birds captured elsewhere in the world. How can such birds be expected to live out their lives in anything like a natural manner? Those are questions that should be addressed by the House.
United Kingdom farmers have some of the highest—if not the highest—welfare standards in the world and we should ensure that they do not continue to lose out in the way that they have. Products are still not marketed sufficiently well for the public to be able to identify those which are produced to the highest standards and those which are produced abroad to the lowest standards.
There are proposals in the gracious Speech to protect the nation's rural heritage, particularly commons. Common lands, of course, involve some of
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the most complex and long-standing problems existing in rural areas—for example, over-grazing, misuse and neglect. I congratulate the Government on having the will to tackle some of these difficult issues.
As to the proposals for an integrated agency, I shall reserve judgment until I have heard them in detail. I am reminded, however, that it is only four-and-a-half years since I introduced my first debate in your Lordships' House to draw attention to the fact that new agencies were being proposed, among which was the Countryside Agency. The noble Lord, Lord Williamson of Horton, made his maiden speech in that debate. We all hoped for great things from the regional development agencies and the Countryside Agency. Your Lordships will remember that Defra was not in being at that stage.
Now, four-and-a-half years later, we are looking at another large upheaval in the consideration and delivery of rural policies. This is something that will weary those who live in rural areas. It is very difficult to feel hopeful all of the time.
With no disrespect to the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will not be replying to the debate today. Let me remind the House of some of the noble Lord's comments when he replied to my debate in 1999. He said that,
"RDAs will also benefit from the expertise and knowledge of staff transferring from the RDC as they have substantial experience of rural regeneration issues".
"Our commitment to rural representation will continue to be reflected in the RDA's funding of rural areas. Rural funds will be separated to ensure that the needs of rural areas are addressed and will be allocated specifically to those areas. We are also giving guidance about how RDAs should use their rural budgets, including how they determine the rural needs within their regions".—[Official Report, 10/3/99; col. 278.]
In my view, four-and-a-half years later the RDAs have not succeeded in delivering a dynamic rural regeneration package, nor have the Government succeeded in holding them to account for not doing so.
The Countryside Agency is being changed and diminished and local authorities are in danger of being sidelined by the new proposals, even though I recall the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, that they should play a more central role. If they had existed, regional assemblies might have held the regional development agencies to account, but the likelihood of any assemblies being established has faded into the background. It is therefore even more urgent that the Government should apply themselves with vigour to ensuring that regional development agencies start to deliver the rural agenda.
All this comes at a time of CAP reform. This is very welcome but, with the single farm payment coming into existence and farmers needing extra help and guidance at a time when the staff in such agencies are feeling unsure, demoralised and wondering about their own future, it is a very difficult scenario for rural areas.
We shall have to wait and see whether the new agency takes in coastal and marine areas. Will those be part of its brief, will the Environment Agency have an expanded role, or will marine areas have yet another agency of their own? These are important questions.
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Turning briefly to the clean and safe neighbourhoods proposals, we welcome anything that can be done to improve the environment, particularly local environments. Litter is unsightly, demoralising and, if it is broken glass or discarded needles, it can be dangerous. However, the Bill will not touch on the unseen potential killer that has been highlighted by several agencies and organisations—I refer to chemicals in the environment.
The Environment Agency recently highlighted the fact that a third of male fish in our rivers had changed sex recently. The National Federation of Women's Institutes, the Co-operative Bank and the World Wildlife Fund have done some sterling work in their study of chemicals and health, and I believe that there are others working in that consortium. They have highlighted what a huge time bomb this is.
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution reported in stark terms in June 2003, making 54 urgent recommendations about chemicals in the environment. Some are persistent—that is, they last a very long time—and some are bio-accumulative, so they accumulate in tissue. To those at the top of the food chain, as human beings are, that poses a particular threat. I do not see anything in the clean and safe neighbourhoods Bill to address any of those 54 recommendations. Unless the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, tells me that I am wrong, I do not think that the Government have even responded to that report yet, which is much to be regretted.
Let me turn briefly to what is not in the gracious Speech. The noble Baroness, Lady Byford, mentioned the lack of a marine Bill, and I join her in regretting that. Indeed, I would go further: I think it is a great pity that, as I understand it, the clean and safe neighbourhoods Bill will not include the duty to make sure that the nation's beaches are clean. That Bill could have done so, even if a marine Bill is not soon to be on the horizon. In its response to Living Places: Cleaner, Safer, Greener, Defra undertook to address beach litter, so it is a shame that it has not done so.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, said that litter indicates a "no one cares around here" mentality. I suggest that ignoring marine litter indicates that a "no one cares around here" mentality applies to those drafting the clean and safe neighbourhoods Bill. Should the Government be in a position to introduce Bills after an election, I urge them to introduce a marine Bill.
On food and health, the Minister made some points about the White Paper Choosing Health: Making healthy choices easier, which was all about aspiration and partnership. His mention of a delivery plan early in 2005 was very welcome. I would welcome in particular some early action on school meal standards. Turkey Twizzlers can still count as meat, which is particularly amazing and disgraceful, and the Office of Fair Trading has set its sights firmly against any particular restrictions on the salt and sugar content of foods and on the advertising to children of food that is unsuitable for children. So I hope that the delivery plan will be more than fine words, but that may well be all that the Government have time for before the election.
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In the time available to us, we on these Benches will attempt to make the best of the legislation before us and to much improving that which can be amended. We look forward to working with everyone in doing so.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if, like the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, in her closing remarks, I concentrate in my short speech on something that is not in the Queen's Speech but will, I imagine, be in a gracious Speech in 2005.
I refer to the Government's White Paper on public health, published just two weeks ago. It is a major landmark for everyone who has worked for so many years to reduce the terrible toll of death and disease caused by tobacco smoking. Here I declare an interest, as a trustee of the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.
The White Paper is so important because it includes, for the first time, government proposals to legislate for smoking restrictions in the workplace and in enclosed public places. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Warner on the very important part that he played in the Department of Health in drawing up the White Paper.
The White Paper is such a major step for public health because, first, it will protect employees and members of the public from the damage caused to their health from second-hand smoke. The Government's surveys show that 2.2 million people in Great Britain still work in places where smoking is allowed throughout and a further 10.7 million in places where smoking is allowed somewhere on the premises.
The issue of smoking in the workplace is sometimes presented as though it applied to pubs, restaurants and hospitality venues alone. That is not so. Total employment in pubs, clubs and nightclubs, according to the Labour Force Survey, is one third of a million, but millions of employees outside the hospitality industries are also exposed to smoke at work—and they, too, deserve and require protection.
The public health benefits of the Government's proposals will be considerable. The debate about whether second-hand smoke is a health and safety risk is almost over, although the tobacco industry and its lobbyists are still attempting to deny it, in just the same way as they tried to deny for many years the link between smoking and death and disease. Then, when they had lost that debate, they sought to deny that nicotine was a dangerous addictive drug.
In searching for proof, we need only look at the Government's Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health, whose latest report was published with the White Paper. It concludes that exposure of non-smokers to second-hand smoke increases their risk of contracting lung cancer and heart disease, in both cases by about a quarter.
That increased risk covers both domestic and workplace exposure. In May this year, Professor Jamrozik, formerly of Imperial College London, estimated for the Royal College of Physicians that
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second-hand smoke in the workplace led to about 700 premature deaths a year, three times the number who die each year in industrial injuries and accidents. We know, for example, that smoking at work is the second greatest trigger of asthma attacks.
Ending smoking in the workplace will also encourage many smokers to cut down or quit altogether. In his latest report to the Government on public health, Derek Wanless estimated that a complete end to smoking in the workplace could lead to a fall in smoking rates of up to 4 per cent, from about one in four adults to close to one in five. Anyone who thinks that that is a modest achievement should remember that a reduction on that scale is roughly what would be expected if we doubled the price of a packet of cigarettes.
That is the good news. There is a consensus, shared by the medical profession and the Government, that, apart from being thoroughly unpleasant for people who do not want to breathe the stale tobacco smoke of others, passive smoking is dangerous. It therefore follows that people at work should be protected from the dangers of second-hand smoke. That being so, it is hard to understand the logic—or the rightness—of a national policy that allows any exemptions. To exempt some pubs and private clubs from the legislation would fail to protect the single group of employees which has been identified as being at most risk, namely the staff in pubs and bars. That group is specifically mentioned in the SCOTH report, which states:
"as cigarette smoking prevalence has continued to come down. However, some groups, for example bar staff, are heavily exposed at their place of work".
Ministers have stated that they expect up to 20 per cent of pubs—those not serving "prepared food"—to be exempted. That would be about 11,000 pubs out of a total of 55,000 throughout the country. Private clubs not admitting children could also be exempt, following a vote of members. Of course, others may try to drive through that loophole to escape the restrictions.
That approach does not make sense. I predict that, in view of the SCOTH report, the Government will find it impossible to set satisfactory minimum health and safety standards for workplaces that continue to permit smoking, and they will be obliged to abandon the exemptions and introduce a complete ban, along the lines of those in countries such as Ireland and Norway. The truth is that smoking and non-smoking areas cannot effectively be separated because smoke drifts and pub employees would still have to work in smoking areas threatening their health.
The proposal for exemptions would also be legally unsustainable, because of the certainty of civil actions for compensation from employees made ill by exposure to tobacco smoke at work. There is also a strong argument for simplicity in legislation of this kind. If smoking restrictions are to work, they must be well understood by the public and generally obeyed without extensive external enforcement, as they are in Ireland and Norway. To exempt one category of
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workplace or public place would confuse the issue. It could undermine the justification for legislation and risk losing public support.
It is sometimes argued that, if smoking at work is ended, smoking in the home will simply increase, and that is a risk to children. I have searched in vain for any evidence for that in any jurisdiction where smoking at work has been ended by law. There is none at all. On the contrary, a ban on smoking at work encourages many smokers to stop altogether. For example, since the ban in Ireland, cigarette sales have fallen by 16 per cent. Secondly, it greatly increases public understanding of the risks of second-hand smoke and therefore discourages irresponsible smoking around children. Finally, it helps to prevent smoking from being seen as a normal—or even desirable—adult activity, a sort of rite of passage in the process of growing up, and thus a major reason why young people start to smoke. For all those reasons, I strongly suggest that the Government rethink the proposed exemptions, especially bearing in mind how wonderfully positive the remainder of the public health White Paper is.
By the time that we legislate, we shall be able to draw on the experience of other jurisdictions that have gone down the route of completely banning smoking in the workplace. We already have the experience of countries such as Ireland and Norway. The compliance rate in Ireland is incredibly high, at around 97 per cent. A growing number of states in the US are following New York's example. They are discovering that going smoke-free is good for business, as a healthy workforce also brings in healthy profits.
Here in the UK, Scotland and—I expect—Wales will have introduced smoking bans before the Government's legislation for England kicks in. Some local authorities, such as the London boroughs and the City of Liverpool, want to bring in their own measures and have deposited in the past week their own Private Bills aimed at achieving a complete ban on smoking in places of work. I hope that the Government and the Opposition will support those local authority initiatives.
I am likely to be involved with the passage of the Liverpool Bill in your Lordships' House, because the promoters have done me the great honour of asking me to present it to your Lordships in September. Without anticipating what I might say when that Bill comes before the House, I remind your Lordships that smoking kills around 1,000 people a year in Liverpool every year, of whom 100 have never smoked. Liverpool is regarded as the lung cancer capital of England, a reputation that it is very anxious to be shot of. I hope that we will hear an assurance from my noble friend the Minister that the Government will do nothing to block the passage of this important Private Bill when it comes before us in January and that we can regard the experiences in London and Liverpool as a useful forerunner for national legislation that will be introduced later.
The White Paper, whatever its drawbacks and exemptions, offers us one of the greatest advances in public health for many decades. I hope that the Government will give the clearest commitment to
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legislation in the first Session of the new Parliament, and that my party will include this promise in its general election manifesto.
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