Health Bill (Committee Stage) [first day] 20 April 2006
[Full proceedings of the first day of the Committee Stage of the Health Bill can be found through the link above]
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
The noble Lord may also like to put on the record that the quoted figure of 10 million people still being exposed to smoke in the workplace comes from the Office for National Statistics' labour force survey and omnibus survey on smoking-related behaviour and attitudes.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
To say that they have suddenly changed their mind is stretching the facts a little. After they were re-elected in May 2005, the Government, very properly, engaged in a detailed and long consultation process on the proposals for smoke-free provision in the Health Bill. As a result of that consultation—where figures of 70 per cent and 80 per cent were recording support for complete smoke-free policies rather than for a policy of limited exemption—the policy was changed. In fact, the Government did not change the policy; the policy was changed by the House of Commons by a majority of 200 on a free vote. I suspect that we defy that decision at our peril.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
It is a long time since I was the pupil of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, at university. Happily I was not a student of statistics on that occasion, but I learnt a great deal from him in other areas.
Perhaps we could deal with the question that he raised in an earlier intervention on the figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, relating to the number of people exposed to smoking at work. The figures published in the ONS omnibus survey do not say that 10.4 million people are exposed in all parts of the place where they work; it says that 10.4 million people work in places where there are designated smoking areas.
There are 2.3 million people who work in places where there are no controls at all on smoking, and they are the ones most at risk.
Where I suspect the Committee will find itself divided on a number of occasions as we go through our deliberations is on the medical effect of second-hand smoke. I happen to take a view that concurs with that of the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady Finlay, the noble Lord, Lord Walton, and the Members who come to this Committee from a medical background.
I have also read very carefully the findings of the Government's own Chief Medical Officer on the subject. If you do not take the view that second-hand smoke is dangerous, I can understand your opposition to this Bill. If, on the other hand, you think that it is dangerous, that there is no way you can protect people from the effects of second-hand smoke, whether by designated smoking areas or by ventilation, and that the only way you can protect them is by requiring people to smoke out of doors, then we have a divide. I come down on one side and the House of Commons, by a large majority, came down on the same side, as have the Secretary of State and the Government. I am with them on this.
Referring to the intervention by my noble friend Lord Pendry, I believe that this question about the manifesto is a very dead and red herring, not least because the decision in the House of Commons was taken on a free vote. If the House of Commons is given the opportunity to have a free vote, manifesto commitments do not apply to any Member who takes part in the vote—and I have had confirmation this afternoon from my noble friend from the Government Whips' Office that all our votes on this Bill in this House will also be free votes. So I certainly feel that I shall be able to follow my conscience and not be required to follow a Whip when casting votes in later stages of the debate.
The only other issue that I would like to raise is the commencement date and the effect on the licensed trade, to which the noble Earl, Lord Howe, referred in his speech—now quite a long time ago. I think that he should look at the experience in Scotland, where the Campaign for Real Ale and others have already reported an upturn in the numbers of people going to pubs since the introduction of the smoking ban.
The same experience has been encountered in Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain—all countries which have gone down the same sort of route as we are proposing to go down today. That is the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart. It is not as though we are pioneering legislation here; we are following the best practice that other countries have already introduced and are finding works incredibly effectively. This cannot come too soon for me, and I would go along with the earlier date proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, if possible.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
The Committee should be indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for summarising extraordinarily well what is effectively—I hope that he will not mind my saying this—the opinion of the tobacco industry against the provision of the Bill relating to second-hand smoke. It reminds me of nothing so much as the industry's attempts 30, 40 or 50 years ago to deny that smoking itself was dangerous. When Richard Doll first came forward with his thesis that smoking killed, the industry denied it and attempted to cover up its own research which proved it conclusively.
Subsequent to that, the industry denied that nicotine was addictive—the driver which makes people buy cigarettes even when they want to give up. It denied that for years and years but, again, it was proved that nicotine was addictive. It is now attempting to argue that passive smoking is not dangerous, even though there is an admission on the Philip Morris website that passive smoking is injurious to health.
The degree of objective evidence from around the world on this is overwhelming. For example, the United States Environmental Protection Agency classifies second-hand smoke as a class A substance—a known human carcinogen along with asbestos, arsenic, benzene and radon gas. Around 50 international studies of second-hand smoke and lung cancer risk in people who have never smoked have been published over the past 25 years. Most recently, the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed the literature and concluded that second-hand smoke was cancer-inducing and that non-smokers living with smokers increased their lung cancer risk by approximately 20 per cent for women and 30 per cent for men. For non-smokers exposed in the workplace, the risk of lung cancer increased by 16 to 19 per cent. The Government's own advisory committee on the effects of smoking—the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health—concluded that there was an increased risk of lung cancer for non-smokers of about 24 per cent. I could go on: there are many more statistics. Indeed, it is to the great credit of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that, when he now speaks on the subject, he agrees that passive smoking is dangerous.
That is absolutely at the heart of Clause 1; indeed, it is at the heart of all the tobacco-control provisions in the Bill. If you accept that second-hand smoke is dangerous—it is certainly unpleasant; no one would disagree with that—then the Government are entirely justified in coming forward with this legislation. When I hear arguments about liberty, I believe that I have a right of freedom to enjoy smoke-free air, and I think that the right that I have to enjoy smoke-free air overrides that of smokers who want to pollute the atmosphere around them.
Lord Monson:
Before the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, sits down, does he agree that, although Professor Sir Richard Doll certainly pointed out that active smoking was harmful, he is on record as having said that second-hand smoke did not worry him?
Secondly, a magazine of a technical nature dealing with energy conservation—which is sent to many of your Lordships—has, within the past fortnight, pointed out that 24,000 people a year in this country die prematurely from inhaling traffic fumes. I am not sure whether that includes industrial fumes as well as car and lorry fumes, but that puts the most exaggerated claims of the "passive smoking is dangerous" lobby into perspective, does it not?
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, I wish that my teaching on political theory had had a better effect. I say to the noble Lord that he has no right to smoke-free air unless he can show that the denial of smoke-free air damages him. Even if he can show that, he does not have an absolute right because others have a right to smoke. The question is one of a balance between the two. If the right to smoke can be preserved consistently with the noble Lord's right to a smoke-free environment, then that is the balance that has to be struck. You have no absolute right to anything. It has to be consistent with harms that are being done to you or harms that you are doing to other people.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, was a very good teacher but I think that his logic is failing him on this particular point. No one who is promoting the Bill is proposing to outlaw the smoking of tobacco. Indeed, the countries which have banned the smoking of tobacco in public and enclosed places have not banned it in the open air. I cannot see why it is regarded as an infringement of liberty for me to expect that when I go into a bar, restaurant or place of work I should expect to have clean air there and, at the same time, expect that smokers should go out into the open to smoke, where their smoke does not cause discomfort or harm to the people around them. A balance can be struck there, and all the countries which are going down this route—we, happily, are now going down the same route—have found it to be a perfectly acceptable balance.
Lord Warner:
Perhaps I may help the Committee by responding to the points that the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, raised and move us on from philosophy to the underlying scientific basis for this Bill and this clause. Philosophy is very interesting but I thought that we might get back to the Bill.
Yes, but not before we make a little progress on the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. He said that he has a perfect right to go to a bar and have a drink in a room that is not filled with smoke. Why can he not achieve that objective through the separation of smoking rooms from non-smoking rooms, with proper extractors installed even in the smoking room? What is wrong with that compromise? Why does he want to force people outside? That is the question that I want to ask him. It is not a philosophical question; it is a very practical question which affects the logic of the Bill.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester:
There are two answers to that. First, it is proved that ventilation does not work and, indeed, that it is impossible to remove all the harmful particles from smoke other than with ventilation at the force of a tornado. There is evidence to support that.
Lords Hansard 20 April 2006