According to the Daily Mirror yesterday:
Pubs and cafes will be given fast-track approval to serve food and drink outside under new measures being drawn up by Downing Street, it is reported.
If true it’s good news that we are returning (albeit very slowly) to ‘normal’, but a word of warning.
Five weeks ago it was reported that Conservative MP Mark Pritchard had written to health secretary Matt Hancock urging the Government to restrict smoking in outdoor seating areas when the current rules are eased.
“I am not against smoking," said Mr Pritchard. "This is about non-smoking customers being able to sit outside cafes and pubs without having to run the gauntlet of secondary smoke from smokers, especially the elderly and families with young children.
"Why should non-smokers be forced to breathe in other people's smoke because Covid-19 forces more people to eat outside.
"There should be smoke-free areas where people can eat and drink. There should also be places where people can smoke freely. It's about fairness."
The story, and Forest’s response, didn’t get further than Pritchard’s local paper but until last week I was unaware he had submitted not one but two parliamentary questions on the subject:
On May 6 he asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Hancock) ‘if he will make it his policy to allow local councils to prohibit smoking outside (a) restaurants and (b) other food outlets.’
On May 15 public health minister Jo Churchill replied, in typical Department of Health style:
The Government has a track record of reducing the harm caused by tobacco. The United Kingdom is a world leader and has been rated the best in Europe on tobacco control by independent experts.
The Health Act 2006 and the Smoke-free (Premises and Enforcement) Regulations 2006 made it illegal to smoke in public enclosed or substantially enclosed areas and workplaces. Local authorities retain overall responsibility for the enforcement of the smokefree legislation and retain the power to make by-laws.
We support development and implementation of smoke-free policies locally in and around [my emphasis] public premises. We believe local authorities are best placed to make decisions about the local populations which they serve.
As it happens, this was pretty much the position of the Blair Government in 2004 which was happy for local authorities to decide their own policy on smoking in public places.
(I remember it well because I spent an awful lot of time giving evidence to councils that were considering their own bans before central and devolved governments stepped in and introduced nationwide policies.)
Anyway, two days before Churchill’s reply was published, Pritchard submitted a second PQ that appeared to anticipate the answer to the first.
This time he asked the Secretary of State for Health ‘if he will take steps with the hospitality industry to prohibit smoking outside restaurants and food outlets.’
On May 20, four days after her reply to Pritchard’s first question, Churchill wrote:
The Health Act 2006 and the Smoke-free (Premises and Enforcement) Regulations 2006 made it illegal to smoke in public enclosed or substantially enclosed areas and workplaces. Should a business in the hospitality industry wish to introduce their own non-smoking policy for outside space which is not captured under the Health Act 2006 and the Smoke-free (Premises and Enforcement) Regulations 2006, they are able to do so.
It’s hard to know exactly how to read these replies. Is Pritchard being gently fobbed off or do I detect a tiny hint of encouragement?
It’s probably the former but draw your own conclusions. All I’ll say is, I would never underestimate the ability of government and the hospitality industry to change tack overnight if it became expedient to do so.
We’ve been here before and it didn’t end well, not least because the pub industry decided days before MPs were due to vote on the smoking ban that a ‘level playing field’ (ie a comprehensive ban) was more important than consumer choice.
It’s worth noting, btw, that in Pritchard’s PQs he specifically used the word ‘prohibit’ - not ‘restrict’ - so all that guff about being fair to non-smokers and smokers rings a bit hollow.
Note too that neither PQ mentioned pubs and cafes, merely ‘restaurants and food outlets’ which begs the question, at what point does a pub or cafe become a ‘food outlet’?
It reminds me of the proposal put forward by Labour health secretary John Reid and included in the party’s 2005 election manifesto.
In an effort to find a compromise that would be ‘fair’ to smokers and non-smokers, Reid proposed a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places with the exception of pubs that didn’t serve food. This in turn led to a debate about what constituted ‘food’.
The difference is that Reid never intended his policy to be extended to al fresco seating areas. Hopefully the Government will be true to its word and leave the issue to individual businesses, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit concerned.
I suspect there is more lobbying going on behind the scenes than we are currently aware of. Time to submit some FOIs to see what’s going on!