Health Bill

Clause 9 provides for fixed penalties in respect of three offences: smoking in a smoke-free place, failure to stop smoking, and failure to display required no smoking signage. The key part for me in this area is the arrival of the fixed-penalty notice, a beast that we have all grown to know; none of us loves it and most of us hate it. We need to reflect as legislators that this animal is not really justice; it is not a method of administering justice. Nor does it necessarily admit guilt. It shows that an authority believes that an infringement has been made and all parties think that if you pay a certain amount of money you will avoid prosecution, and it is an easy way to deal with what may or may not be a minor offence. Those of us who have had the great privilege of taking on Camden Borough Council for officiousness and overzealousness in relation to parking fines know that it is an uphill task for the ordinary citizen, in that there are notes by the person who puts the sign up and it is quite a challenge to get it overturned. In fact, for most district councils up and down the country it is a revenue raiser. I am not sure how the issue is viewed in relation to the Bill, and I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s view. Is it hoped that receipts from fixed-penalty notices will cover the costs of enforcement? Bearing in mind that the costs of enforcement are largely personnel costs, those costs must be quite substantial in Scotland. I am not sure whether we will mirror the level of activity that Scotland is undertaking. What happens if, as I suspect will happen, there is good compliance? I think the Minister expects good compliance, in which case there will not be very many fixed-penalty notices, and therefore there will not be many fines. Nevertheless, the cost factor is still there. The Minister will recall that I wrote a letter to him very early in our proceedings asking for his estimate of the costs of the implementation of the Bill, which was heavily skewed to the first year, but I doubt that he calculated the scenario that I have just painted. I shall have to listen to the Minister’s reply.