Health Bill

moved Amendment No. 37:"Page 6, line 3, at end insert—" ““(   )   No offence is committed under this section if a person who smokes outside a smoke-free place causes or allows smoke to enter that place.”” The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 37 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 38. On the face of it these amendments may seem rather odd. We have been talking about the proposed offence of smoking in a smoke-free place, and I suggest here that smoking outside a smoke-free place should not be counted as an offence. Surely that is a statement of the obvious. Not quite: smoke-free places are defined in Clause 2 in a series of apparently clear provisions which together amount to a ban on smoking in a workplace where more than one person is present, or could be present, or in any other premises open to the public; the smoke-free parts of those premises being only those areas that are enclosed or substantially enclosed. The fear of the pub trade is that while these provisions may seem straightforward as written, they carry with them a risk of what one might call ““regulation creep”” or ““enforcement creep””. Local authorities enforcing the smoke-free rules may be inclined to do so in a way that effectively gold-plates them. A smoker standing just outside the door of a pub may be told to move away on the grounds that he is allowing the smoke to waft into the bar area, or that he is forcing people who come past him to inhale smoke as they go inside. Someone smoking at a table out in the beer garden does not want to be taken to task if he happens to be sitting beside an open window and the smoke from his cigarette is blown into the bar area. If someone in the bar area complains about smoke coming in from outdoors, it is not difficult to imagine an enforcement officer attempting to settle the matter by asking the smoker to move off. My own view is that this kind of over-egged enforcement is a step too far. If, by not being explicit in this area, the Bill leaves even a chink of doubt about the intended meaning, we should seriously ask ourselves whether a provision should be inserted which allows no room for doubt whatever. The British Beer and Pub Association feels that without such a provision, some local authorities may be rather obstructive and overly officious, and that where this happens it could potentially lead to conflict. I must say I have sympathy with that concern. A related issue crops up in Clause 8(1). It states:"““It is the duty of any person who controls or who is concerned in the management of smoke-free premises to cause a person smoking there to stop smoking””." The key word is ““there””. That word should mean ““within the smoke-free premises””, but I suggest to the Minister that it is open to a slightly wider interpretation. A person smoking just outside Paddington station or just outside Terminal 1 at Heathrow Airport could, nevertheless, be said to be at Paddington station or at Terminal 1. There should be no question about what we mean here. Station or airport management should not have a duty to police smoking in any areas other than those where smoking would clearly be an offence under the terms of Clause 2. Is the man standing with a cigarette just outside the pub door in the pub? No. Is he at the pub? Almost certainly. We are dealing here with fine semantics but, once again, I fear that there could be scope for argument if we do not make the provisions absolutely clear. I beg to move.