Health Bill

Amendments Nos. 39 and 41 both relate to the offence of failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free place. Under the Bill, any person who controls or manages smoke-free premises, including additional smoke-free places and vehicles, will have a duty to prevent smoking taking place. They may be guilty of an offence if they fail to comply with that duty. Those are the terms of the Bill as it currently stands. The Bill also provides defences for a person charged with the offence of failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free place, and those are clear: that he took reasonable steps to cause the person to stop smoking; that he did not know someone was smoking and could not reasonably have been expected to; or that on other grounds it was reasonable for him not to comply with the duty. On Amendment No. 39, with regard to preventing smoking in a smoke-free place, any person with management or control of a premises should have the duty to ensure that people do not smoke on the premises. A pub, for example, may have multiple managers on duty. It would be the duty of each of those people to prevent smoking from taking place when they were on duty. It is most unlikely that there would not be someone in some management capacity overseeing a premises, so there should not be any need for the specific delegation of this duty. The amendment on delegation could itself also present difficult issues from the perspective of accountability, where one person could simply claim that he told someone else to make sure that no one smoked. That would cause more confusion and difficulty than leaving the Bill as it is. I ask the noble Earl to think about that. Our position at the moment is that we do not wish to accept the amendment. Amendment No. 41 poses very specific proposals for people on the management committee of a not-for-profit village hall or parish rooms. I can identify with some of the concerns that noble Lords and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, have raised, having been a trustee of a charity over a good number of years in different guises. But the Bill as currently drafted provides enforcement officers with the flexibility to pursue the most appropriate person for the offence of failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free place. In the light of the defences I have mentioned for this offence, as stated in Clause 8(4), it is most unlikely that a member of a management committee for a village or parish hall would be held liable for this offence if they were not to know that smoking was taking place; for example, if they were not present at the hall when someone was smoking. Indeed, if the hall was hired for an event, the individual hirer would need to accept responsibility for control of the premises, which one would presume would include undertakings to ensure that the hall was not vandalised, was cleaned after use and so on. Increasingly in this day and age there is some contractual arrangement when halls are hired, not just in relation to smoking but to ensure that the hall is maintained in reasonable shape by the person hiring. There are usually contractual obligations on the person hiring the hall. It would be up to the management committee—probably through a contractual agreement for the hire of the premises—to ensure that an individual hirer was aware that the hall was to be smoke-free at all times, in addition to his other responsibilities as a hirer. So this could be dealt with most satisfactorily through the normal contractual arrangements for the hire of a hall. If a member of the management committee was present when smoking took place, it might be reasonable for him to take responsibility to require the person to stop smoking. Nevertheless, the appropriate person or persons to pursue for this offence—namely, those in management or control of the premises—would be an issue for the relevant enforcement authority to consider during any investigation. I come back to my point that where there was a contractual obligation on the hirer—which would be a prudent set of arrangements—it would be down to him to ensure that smoking did not take place. I hope the noble Earl and the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, will take some comfort from that clarification and not feel it necessary to pursue the amendments.