Smoking in cars in Northern Ireland - why did the BBC change its headline & story?
Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 12:18 I took part in the Talkback phone-in on BBC Radio Ulster yesterday.
The subject was the announcement – by Northern Ireland health minister Robin Swann – of plans to ban smoking in cars with children in the province.
The 'news' was reported on Sunday and got quite a lot of coverage north and south of the order.
In truth it's not that interesting because smoking is already banned in cars with children in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic of Ireland so it was inevitable that the same thing would happen eventually in Northern Ireland.
However, what almost every headline missed was this:
The proposed new regulations would extend the current smoke-free provisions to private vehicles where children are present, when there is more than one person in the car [my emphasis] and the vehicle is enclosed. It is also proposed that failing to prevent smoking in a smoke-free private vehicle will be made an offence.
Curiously the only media outlet that picked up on this was BBC Northern Ireland which headlined its report, published at 7.00pm on Sunday evening, 'Swann outlines plan to ban smoking in cars with more than one person' which is far more radical than banning smoking in cars with children present.
Twenty-two hours later however the headline had changed to 'Swann outlines plan to ban smoking in cars with children' (ie similar to every other report).
So what happened to make the BBC change its headline?
Who knows, but I can tell you this. When I went on BBC Radio Ulster I made quite a fuss about the ban being imposed 'when there is more than one person in the car' because it obviously prohibits the owner of the car from smoking even if the other person is an adult.
As someone on the Forest Facebook page pointed out, it would also ban someone smoking even if driver and passenger are both adults and smokers!!
In other words, it's nonsensical.
Strangely, the other guest on the phone-in (a public health professional) seemed to agree with me. His focus, he said, was on protecting children.
A few hours later the BBC changed its headline, deleting the reference to banning smoking 'in cars with more than one person'.
There are at least two possible explanations but here's my tuppence ha'penny:
One, the new regulations were never intended to ban smoking when there is more than one person in the car. Robin Swann's announcement was clumsily phrased, leading a keen-eyed BBC journalist to draw his own conclusion.
Two, Swann did want to ban smoking 'when there is more than one person in the car' but backtracked when the BBC (and Forest?) highlighted it at which point someone from Swann's office contacted the BBC to say, "No, no, no, that wasn't our intention at all" and the headline and report were subsequently changed.
That may or may not be what happened but don't be surprised if the issue raises its head again. In the meantime I'm going to ask Robin Swann's office exactly what his plan is.
I'll keep you posted.
PS. This is the press release we sent the BBC after reading their initial headline and report (which was different to all the other headlines).
It was sent five hours before the BBC changed their headline.
Simon Clark, director of the smokers' group Forest, said:
"Banning smoking in cars is a complete waste of legislative time and money.
"Since smoking in cars carrying children was banned in England, Wales and Scotland you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of successful prosecutions.
"This is because even before legislation was introduced very few adults smoked in cars with children because the overwhelming majority knew it was inconsiderate and didn't do it.
"Banning smoking in cars with more than one person is clearly a stepping stone to prohibiting smoking in all private vehicles, regardless of the presence of children.
"Children don't have a choice so it is inconsiderate at best to smoke in a car when they are present.
"But adults do have a choice, and a voice, and if someone wants to smoke with other adults and no children present that's a matter for them not the government."
You can read our original response in the Belfast Telegraph here.
Update: I am beginning to think the Department of Health statement was just badly worded. At the very least it is ambiguous but see for yourself.
Reader Comments (2)
They are bullies who exploit children to ban smoker adults from living non state approved lives. They know if they can ban adults from smoking in their own cars, without the exploitation of children, then they can move into other areas of private property and ban smoking in the home.
I always found it weird that they were so concerned about the health of children who live with smoker parents that the first thing they did was to protect drunken adults with smoking bans in pubs while then driving those former pub smokers back to the home to smoke more in the presence of children.
Truth is that smoking indoors is nowhere near as dangerous as they claim. It is an irritant but not a killer which is why choice was best so both those who like smoking and those who fear it could be accommodated separately in public venues depending on the policy imposed by the owners.
However, it was about politics not health and getting a pub smoking ban was the easy first step to then move up towards individual property bans such as cars and homes.
In my opinion they are liars pushing fear and loathing of smokers because that is the trendy thing to do but using children to incite that fear is really below the belt.
There are no depths these anti smoker lobbyists will not sink to achieve their aim of a world without smokers by the date they set themselves.
As Simon may remember, such legislation was also introduced over here (Isle of Man) a few years back. Interestingly, our local media invited dissent, but a local paper letter from me on civil libertarian grounds was the only response.
My understanding is that the legislation was brought in by our public health czars without even the courtesy of consulting the police, so in return the police have never bothered to consider a strategy for enforcing it . While we follow the UK with an annual pre-Xmas blitz on drink-driving, there has never been an exercise to catch smokers in cars and never will be.
Subsequently, there has not been a single prosecution (or even complaint to the police) since, which suggests the general Manx public also believe the legislation ridiculous and the 'problem' to be non-existent.