How serious is the Oxfordshire-led threat to outdoor smoking?

Just back from a few days in Cheltenham which was intended as a short break from work and ended up being anything but!

In fact, from the moment we arrived I had to respond to the breaking news story that Oxfordshire County Council wanted to ban smoking outside workplaces including offices, pubs and restaurants.

I fired off a response but it didn't take long because our press release (Butt out, campaigners tell council) had been written the previous week in response to a story published by the Oxford Mail on May 25 (Smoke-free strategy could cut fag break spots from Oxfordshire workplaces).

In fact, far from being a new story (Oxfordshire council had originally announced its 'smoke free 2025' target in May 2020), the way it was reported wasn't strictly accurate either.

Local Government Chronicle reporter Mark Smulian has written an article here and in his words reports have been a little 'overblown'.

Nevertheless the story as reported by the local and national media was quickly seized upon by tobacco control lobbyists and within 24 hours more headlines had appeared that clearly implied that at least five other councils were taking their cue from Oxfordshire and were also intending to ban smoking outside pubs and restaurants.

One newspaper even headlined their report 'Smoking banned in beer gardens by five councils across England' which could not be further from the truth.

Nevertheless this is how campaigners generate momentum. You could even call it a 'confidence trick'.

What wasn't properly explained was that the 'five council' story relates not to beer gardens or existing outdoor drinking/dining areas but to the new pavement areas that sprung up after the first lockdown in spring 2020.

You may remember the story because I wrote about it at length and Forest was partly responsible (I like to think) for persuading the Government not to roll over and accept a last minute amendment to their Business and Planning Bill that would have prohibited smoking in any area awarded a pavement licence by the local council to serve food and drink.

Let's be blunt about this. ASH and a small group of like-minded peers failed in their attempt to hijack the bill (which was designed to reduce not increase red tape on local businesses) but they did achieve one thing.

They forced the Government to insert a 'compromise' amendment of their own that made it mandatory for proprietors to provide a 'smoke free' zone in the new licensed pavement areas.

What that amendment didn't do was introduce a national ban on smoking in the new licensed areas. It did however leave the door open to individual local authorities to make 'smoke free' a condition of being awarded a pavement licence and that is what five councils – Northumberland, Durham, North Tyneside, Newcastle and Manchester – did last year.

Five councils.

Do you know how many councils there are in England? 340.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be vigilant. No doubt ASH will be writing again to the other 335 local authorities with a copy of their 'Briefing for local authorities: Pavement licences and smoking', dated September 2020.

How much support they will get remains to be seen. Frankly I'm not sure how much enthusiasm there will be among council leaders when the hospitality industry needs every customer it can get post pandemic.

Nevertheless it's an issue that certainly won't go away and it was interesting that the story was also picked up by Euronews, a TV channel funded almost exclusively by the European Union.

Last night I was invited to appear on their evening news programme with Derek Yach, president of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World which is funded, as you know, by Philip Morris International.

I'm not sure if he used the word himself but I've heard others this week say that smoking bans 'empower' smokers to stop and ex-smokers not to relapse.

If that's going to be the benchmark for future public policy we may as well ban the public consumption of alcohol now in case it proves too much of a temptation for people who want to give up alcohol.

Likewise, let's ban the consumption of high calorie food in public places in case it deters people who want to lose weight or not put it back on again.

Anyway, what has pleased me most over the past few days has been the reaction to the threat of an outdoor smoking ban.

Too often recently Forest has found itself the lone voice opposing anti-smoking measures. Not this week.

I've been a bit critical lately of free market think tanks and their promotion of reduced risk products as the best way to achieve the Government's goal of a 'smoke free' England by 2030.

It's not reduced risk products I'm against. Far from it. It's the tacit support for the Government's 'smoke free' goal which by its very nature runs roughshod over the interests of millions of adults who enjoy smoking and don't want to quit, even for a 'healthier' alternative.

Credit then to Chris Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, for speaking out against outdoor smoking bans and even pushing back, when asked, on the issue of indoor smoking bans in pubs.

Chris appeared on Five Live and also wrote a strongly-worded article for the Daily Telegraph (Nannies push the boundaries of illiberalism: A proposal to ban smoking outdoors demonstrates the warped judgment of public health officialdom).

I wish I could say the same about other 'free market' think tanks and consumer groups but not for the first time they have sat on their hands this week, preferring to ignore an issue that could deal yet another blow to property rights and consumer choice.

More encouraging has been the response of the hospitality industry which I have also accused of being reluctant to stand up and be counted on smoking-related issues. According to The Sun:

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, blasted the plans, saying it will hurt an already wounded sector, saying today: "The pandemic has been the worst period our pubs have ever had to endure - months of closure followed by periods of severely reduced trading.

"We would encourage all local authorities to work with the sector in helping us get back on our feet, not burdening us with more red tape at the worst possible time."

And Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, said: "This damaging decision would be a hugely disproportionate step and will inevitably deter customers from pubs, bars and restaurants - businesses that already find themselves in a very fragile state following months of closure and over a year of severely disrupted trading."

See also: Smoke free policies 'hugely disproportionate step' (Morning Advertiser).

There have also been been strong words from the Daily Mail's Stephen Glover (This plan to ban smoking outside leaves me fuming and I'm not even a regular puffer) and even arch anti-smoker Janet Street-Porter (I can't stand smoking but who gave the dictatorial busybodies on our Nanny State councils the right to tell people they can't even light up in the open air anymore?).

Best of all, if less of a surprise, was the wonderful response from our old friend David Hockney. Writing for UnHerd (which is increasingly my go-to place for thoughtful, well-written and sometimes long-form articles), Britain's greatest living artist commented:

Not many people in England will defend smoking. They are intimidated by the medical profession and “social pressure”. Well, I’m lucky I can’t hear the “social pressure”, let alone what the doctors have to say. Their obsession with health is unhealthy. Longevity shouldn’t be an aim in life; that to me seems to be life-denying ...

Smoking for me is a deep pleasure and 1.1 billion people in the world seem to agree. It can never be stopped; smokers would just start growing their own tobacco. But we need more people to defend it, otherwise the bossy boots will win in England.

The full article, 'Britain needs a cigarette', can be found here. I urge you to read it.

PS. I was sounded out on Thursday about appearing on Good Morning Britain on Friday. I was asked if I was available to take part in a 'debate' about the proposed outdoor smoking ban.

On Thursday evening however I was told my services would not be required because the producers had decided to go with another speaker in order to “improve our gender balance".

My replacement was journalist and commentator Ella Whelan, who was once the recipient of one of Forest's 'Voices of Freedom' awards.

Ella was up against another journalist, Rebecca Jane (no, me neither) who insisted, according to The Sun, that smoking should be banned everywhere.

With the benefit of hindsight I'm rather glad it was Ella, not me, who had to respond. An older man arguing with a woman less than half his age might not have been a good look!