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House adjourned at fifteen minutes before five o'clock.
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Thursday, 20 April 2006.
Grand Committee
The Committee met at two of the clock.
[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (VISCOUNT SIMON) in the Chair.]
Health Bill
(First Day)
Links to other Grand Committee Sittings on the Bill
(Second Day)
(Third Day)
(Fourth Day)
(Fifth Day)
(Sixth Day)
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon): In the very unlikely event of a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bell rings and resume after 10 minutes.
Lord Naseby moved Amendment No. 1:
"( ) This Chapter does not apply to any premises or places that are being used solely as a private dwelling, nor to any vehicle which is being used solely for private purposes."
The noble Lord said: Before I turn to the specifics of the amendment, I should place on record once again my personal dissatisfaction that an issue that affects nearly one-third of the nation is, nice though the Moses Room is, not being considered on the Floor of the House, in the Chamber, which is in my judgment the appropriate place for such an important Committee stage.
Secondly, for the convenience of the Committee, and so that we do not have any arguments about certain issues, I make it absolutely clear that I personally accept that smoking causes death to the smoker. I have no wish to have any issue about that. I also accept that it affects morbidity and have no wish to challenge that. However, Members of the Committee may want to note that, through a number of amendments, I shall be challenging the alleged health effects of passive smoking.
Finally, before I turn to the fine detail of the amendment, I express some disappointment to the Minister—I am sorry to do so so early in our proceedings. I wrote to him with some queries before the Easter break and have yet to receive a reply. I should have thought that it was normal courtesy for a response to be given prior to the Committee proceedings, especially as I asked for the reply to be received before the Committee started.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Lord Warner): If the noble Lord looks in his pigeonhole, I think that he will find that there is a reply there.
Lord Naseby: I must say that I looked in my pigeonhole at precisely 20 minutes to two o'clock. My letter was two pages long and contained a fair number of queries. The Minister may think it a normal procedure to deliver a response with only 20 minutes
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to go before the Committee, but I must say that that would not normally be acceptable in any other walk of life. It was never acceptable in the other place and, in my experience in your Lordships' House, this is the first time that a reply has been delivered 20 minutes prior to a meeting. I am half wondering whether I should not move to adjourn the Committee for a few moments, but maybe I can nip out during our debate on Amendment No. 2 to check whether the reply is actually there.
I turn to Amendment No. 1, with which I understand that it is convenient to take Amendments Nos. 23, 27 and 105 to 108. This is a crucial part of the Bill and I understand that it is the Government's wish that the timing dimensions be taken with this. That is a central issue, which one would normally expect to be in the Bill, but it is not on this occasion.
Clause 2 makes all enclosed or substantially enclosed work and public places smoke-free and Clause 3 enables exemptions to be made from those provisions. As I understand it, it is the Government's view that the Bill is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill, which of course really have no validity, because they are only the views of the department, state:
"The question of whether taking measures of the kind provided for in this Bill to control the use of products which are lawfully on sale to persons over 16 would breach the rights in Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) was considered. However, it was not felt"—
"that, even if such rights were engaged, there would be any breach of such rights. Any interference with such rights is justified on the grounds of protection of health".
I am not sure that that is even a valid exemption under the European Convention on Human Rights; I would challenge whether it is a valid reason.
Certainly, this explanation avoids answering the question whether the interference is proportionate. We know from the response to a number of surveys that the general public do not believe that the Government's attitude on this aspect of the Bill is proportionate. Surely the answer must be that it is not. Means are available to accommodate smoking in work and public places that would meet health concerns, that would not infringe convention rights and that would fall short of the comprehensive prohibition that the Bill proposes.
In recognition of Article 8, Ministers have indicated their intention to exempt a person's home or living accommodation from the smoke-free provisions of the Bill. In providing an illustrative example of what description of premises may be exempted by regulations—I underline the word "may"—Clause 3(2) states,
"any premises where a person has his home, or is living with a permanently or temporarily (including hotels, care homes, and prisons and other places where a person may be detained)".
The first point that I wish to put to the Committee is that I do not believe that anything as fundamental as one's home can be put into the regulations. We are not able as a Committee to determine what those
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regulations might say. We have a long tradition in our House of not interfering on statutory instruments; we either reject them in toto or we leave them as they are. Your Lordships have considered whether we should be able to amend them, but we have so far not reached that happy stage. Given that we in this House cannot do anything about the regulations and given that a person's home is absolutely fundamental to the way they live and to their family life, it seems to me that this ought to be on the face of the Bill.
My noble friend Earl Howe has tabled an amendment that seeks to prevent the provisions in Clause 4(1) from being used to designate a private dwelling. I have to say to him that I do not think that that is quite good enough, either. It does not deal with the grave doubts about the position of a private home under this Bill. As drafted, the Bill states that, where a premises is a workplace, the smoke-free provisions apply all the time. That applies whether the premises is a two-up, two-down, a small cottage or a stately home.
The Explanatory Notes, for reasons that are not totally clear, give the example of a stately home that is open for perhaps one day a year. The premises would be exempt from the smoke-free provisions, provided that it was not also a workplace, in which circumstances it would have to be smoke-free at all times. I am not sure whether whoever wrote those Explanatory Notes has ever been to a stately home. If you think that you can run and properly look after a stately home on the basis of the two occupants who are there, you are a genius. You are bound to employ staff, so the premises will have to be totally smoke-free.
It is also not clear how the Bill's provisions would be applied in other cases. If a person's home is to be exempted by regulations, will the workplace smoking prohibition not apply? Will a person's home be exempted if someone works there at some time as a helper in the house? Will a person's home be exempt if someone works there on a job—say, an electrician, a plumber or a builder? We have a daily at home, who comes in in the morning. She smokes. We had a plumber in this morning, because we had a bit of a problem. He smokes. These are real issues. The daily is on national insurance and so on, so she is properly covered. The plumber is someone else's responsibility, not mine, but he had to come into the house.
When will the smoke-free provisions apply to a private home, or will they not apply at all? I hope that the Minister will recognise that this is a real issue; it is not party political, pro-smoking or even a considered restriction of smoking. It is a huge problem. At the moment, we do not have the answers, and I repeat that it is not adequate that we should have to wait for answers until we get the regulations.
I suspect—and hope—that, in responding, the Minister will give clear guidance on the questions that I have posed to make sure that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is not
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infringed. I am not raising questions about care homes, prisons and the like; I am talking solely about a person's private dwelling and their accommodation. This will obviously affect millions of homes up and down the country. I believe that it would be much more appropriate to state on the face of the Bill that Chapter 1 of Part 1 does not apply to any place being used solely as a private dwelling house. I beg to move.
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