My Lords, it will come as no surprise to my noble friend the Minister, who may remember our debate on pavement licences a year ago, that I have every sympathy with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. As he said, I supported the amendment then moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, saying that pavement licences should be given only if smoking were prohibited, and I will not repeat the arguments I made then. That amendment was withdrawn, but on Report the Government tabled their own concessionary amendment requiring proper provision for non-smokers and, although it was not what the movers wanted—nor, indeed, what the majority of the speakers in the debate had asked for—the concession was accepted. My noble friend then said that joint guidance would be issued by his department and DHSC.
That joint guidance was non-contentious. I want to focus this afternoon on paragraph 11.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which refers to updated guidance from the department to help local authorities implement the provisions of this order. I do this because, on 8 August last year, after the guidance I referred to was published, the Secretary of State emailed Manchester City Council, stating that its proposal to set a local smoke- free condition on the issue of pavement licences was
“against the spirit of the emergency legislation passed by Parliament”.
It was not: the legislation expressly said that local authorities could set a local condition such as Manchester proposed. Indeed, in Committee on the Bill my noble friend said:
“Therefore, local authorities can exercise their condition-making powers to impose no-smoking conditions”.—[Official Report, 13/7/20; col. 1482.]
Worse, the letter went on to assert that if smoking were banned outside pubs and cafes:
“It could lead to significant closures across the country.”
In spite of repeated challenges, not one shred of evidence was ever produced by the department to substantiate that assertion, frequently made by the smoking pressure group FOREST. Such evidence as we have from the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007 showed that more people said that they went to the pub more often than said that they went less often. The simple assurance which I seek from the Minister, whom I acquit from being in any way complicit in this misinformation, is that if further guidance is given to
accompany this order, it does not contain any more inaccurate or misleading statements such as those that I have referred to.
3.20 pm