Government Plans On Extending Ban

According to The i newspaper, Keir Starmer will definitely be banning smoking from locations such as pub beer gardens as the new government has refused to rule out “major new smoking laws”.

The “burden” that people smoking places on the NHS “is too high”, according to the Prime Minister.

The ban will include:

• Small parks
• Pavements outside nightclubs
• Pavements outside hospitals
• Sports venues 

As we reported, hospitality industry bosses have slammed the proposals, saying it will destroy businesses still reeling from the impact of Covid and the lockdowns.

The finer details of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill haven’t been published, but it will build on the framework introduced by Rishi Sunak’s Conservative administration.

The prime minister is reported as saying: “My starting point on this is to remind everybody that over 80,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking. That is a preventable death, it’s a huge burden on the NHS, and, of course, it is a burden on the taxpayer.”

With police forces being overstretched and undermanned, it is difficult to see how successfully this new ban can be implemented. Despite a rumoured threat of £150 Fixed Penalty Notices, smokers and vapers are already talking about how they will ignore the outdoor use ban.

Although The i initially claimed the outdoor ban will not apply to vaping, many other sources say it is being considered in cabinet discussions. Within a week, the newspaper had switched from that position to acknowledging Labour do intend to ban vaping both indoors and outdoors.

The Daily Mail talks about ministers wanting to attack “the scourge of vaping”. The newspaper reports that a “senior minister” (Lucy Powell MP) told them the party fully intends to “tackle the scourge of vaping” once it has completed its clampdown on smoking.

There is a complete disconnect between public statements and the science. The NHS is still in the process of encouraging smokers to quit by handing out one million vape starter kits.

Lucy Powell claims that banning smoking and vaping from public venues will not hurt the nighttime economy.

Speaking to Sky News, she said: “We're certainly not attacking the hospitality industry, we support the hospitality industry. It's vital to our communities, our high street, our economy.”

Continuing, she added: “We also want to tackle the scourge of vaping, which is a real blight for many young people.”

Rachael Maskell agreed that clamping down on vaping is a “very obvious next step”, in an interview with Times Radio.

“We need to align what we do for smoking for people that are vaping as well. We need to have that consistency in public policy to ensure that everyone is clear. Banning vaping for indoor spaces is a very obvious step to take. But there’s all sorts of other issues like advertising, where vapes are sold and indeed what’s in those vapes because we know that there is an illicit market out there and getting on top of that is crucial for the government as it looks at that legislation,” she commented.

Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive of UKHospitality, says: “A ban on smoking in outdoor spaces comes with the prospect of serious economic harm to hospitality venues. You only have to look back to the significant pub closures we saw after the indoor smoking ban to see the potential impact it could have.

“This ban would not only affect pubs and nightclubs, but hotels, cafes and restaurants that have all invested significantly in good faith in outdoor spaces and continue to face financial challenges.

“The government must embark on a full and detailed conversation with affected parties on the impact of such a ban before any legislation is laid. It must also assess whether such a ban would achieve its aims of meaningfully reducing smoking or simply relocate smoking elsewhere, such as in the home.”

Photo Credit:

• Photo by Reza Mehrad on Unsplash

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.