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Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Tory MP Tables Bill to Repeal the Smoking Ban
In this short video, Conservative MP David Nuttall explains why he's tabling a 10 Minute Rule Bill aimed at repealing the smoking ban.
P.S. If the pub and club trade had had the foresight to avoid becoming the last compulsory smoking zones (voluntary and involuntary) they might still have a wide enough customer base to amintain their businesses.
As it is, it will take years for clean, well run, smoke free pubs to rebuild the appeal of pubbing among the non-smoking majority who wereby and large driven out of pubs and clubs by landlords permitting unfettered smoking.
Next up, time to get tough on the alcohol peddling industry that does so much to amke a misery of so many people's lives.
Backwards step - I was in favour of premises having the right to chose and being more tightly regulated on their smoking areas. But we are where we are. And smoking is unhealthy.
His website: http://davidnuttall.info/2010/10/10/why-the-smoking-ban-should-be-relaxed/ His entire argument is based on the economics with regard to pubs etc, no mention of dodgy statistics. Reading between the lines he may have decided it would not be expedient to take that line. Still, a start - of sorts. Shame it'll be strangled at birth.
Yes. I am one of those people who will never enter a pub again, owing to the smoking ban. I have also sadly had to leave my drama club's social night because of the ban. Why should I travel sixteen miles to attend, only to stand outside with others to smoke? The same goes for my badminton club's after-game social get-together. How was such a socially-divisive and iniquitous law ever allowed on our statute books?
Really doesn't matter what happens in the UK provincial Parliament, the EU is going to Legislate on smoking, and is even now preparing a pan-European smoking ban.
Good, at last someone who supports choice. As Lord Young recently said if people wish to take risks with their own lives that's up to them. With modern technology there is no reason why a pub cannot be sufficiently well ventilated to ensure that smokers (perhaps with their own room) and non smokers can use the same premises.
I see the undemocratic righteous are bleating already - how typical!
Give people the choice - Britain is still, (theoretically), a democracy - allow landlords to choose whether their pub will permit smoking or not - if you don't like it, go to a non-smoking pub!
Problem solved, the pub trade will pick up again and fewer pubs will have to close permanently. What you people refuse to realise or admit is that high tax on alcohol is not the reason why so many pubs are closing, it's completely down to the smoking ban - get your blinkers off and take your heads out of the sand!
At last there are a few small signs that commonsense which has served Britsh society so well for so long but which the last government did its best to outlaw may be making a comeback.
David Nuttall's motion recognises the damage done not only to the economy but to personal liberty, community cohesion and respect for authority by trying to replace traditional British values of tolerance, diversity with heavy-handed, draconian, one-size-fits-all legislation.
Would that there were more like him in parliament.
Well done Mr Nuttal. Its about time somebody started to undo the oppressive boot regime imposed by the last government. Who needs terrorists when labour already took away our freedoms? Treat us as adults and MPs will start to get back some respect. I hope you will debunk the spurious claim that smoking costs the NHS, when the truth is it pays the entire NHS budget several times over. BrianD
Well done. I think it has gone far enough with confining smokers to their homes. It's all abit like being under house arrest. Pubs should be allowed to have 'Smoking rooms' if they want or there should be 'Licensed Smoking Houses' that way the government could make some more money out of the smokers whilst appearing to be offering freedom of choice.
Good luck. Please get this hideous ban repealed and give property rights back to the landlords.
Non smokers dont need a total monopoly on every public place, just in cases they might want to go there one day. Give the choice back to the premesis owner.
Irrespective of paternalistic nannying and medical evidence, the simple matter of cultural choice should be paramount; go to a non-smoking pub if you insist - but allow us the right to sit in a warm indoor environment all night, not popping in & out, to a freeezing carpark or hastily-cobbled 'beer garden'. Members-only clubs, patron-owned pubs, there has to be a way. How come actors can still smoke in a scene being shot in this country, using unionised crew? One exception surely kyboshes the lot!
Why cant landlords and customers have a choice? Most pubs have separate bars, surely adults should be able to choose smoking or non-smoking. It would be interesting to see if pub profits went up if a choice was introduced. Good luck Iain.
Can someone please tell me why choice is such a bad thing? I want to have the choice of going into a pub or club that allows smoking. I want the choice of being able to mix with my friends socially - because we enjoy each other company - unfettered by whether we should feel guilty about having a drink ro a cigar. I want anyone who doesn't like that pub or club to have the choice to go somewhere else. Surely to God in the 21st century, the energy devoted by the sanctimonious, busybodies that make up the self-righteous health police, could be put to better use on some other project. Peddling the bikes attached to the generator, that powers the air extraction system, that makes the air fresh, for example.
I do not smoke, and would encourage anyone to stop, but I believe in basic freedoms, and Landlords should be free to run their pubs the way they seem fit, people should have a choice of entering a smoking or non smoking pub, so perhaps licences should be applied/granted at the outset. so come on, lets kick big brother out, and give us our basic freedoms back!!!.
A real step in the right direction. A sensible life line to pubs that are shutting down at the rate of 28 a week...
A completely Separate area which non smokers don't have to go in to. No-ones arguing for a return to the old days, just common sense like all other European countries e.g Spain, France, Germany and last week even the Netherlands amended it's total ban.
Regardless of your feelings on smoking, it's not going to hurt anyone except those who choose to go in. Staff will only have to clean the area and will be exposed to only the same stale smoke levels as in a hotel room now in the UK in which it is legal to smoke a legal product.
As a lifelong non-smoker I am strongly in favour of having separate areas in pubs etc. where the fairly harmless addicts can smoke in peace. Sending them out onto the pavements actually increases the amount of smoke that non-smokers have to endure. I have spent most of my working life in offices where someone/some people smoked regularly and the only time that reached the list of problems worth considering was when an officious young man came in and proposed taking a vote on turning our office into a Non-smoking zone - the non-smokers immediately declared that we would vote against it before the smoker got a word in edgeways...
"As it is, it will take years for clean, well run, smoke free pubs to rebuild the appeal of pubbing among the non-smoking majority who wereby and large driven out of pubs and clubs by landlords permitting unfettered smoking."
Who the hell are you kidding?, its been years, all thats happened is the smokers who used to use the pubs now stay at home, and the people who never went to pubs in the first place (apparently because of the smoking ban) still stay at home because they DON'T LIKE PUBS.
My local has two bars one was smoking one was non smoking- before the ban the non smoking side was empty and the smoking side was full. Now they're both dead.
It should be up to the landlord whether or not to allow it, and then up to the customers whether they wish to continue drinking in a pub that has smokers. It has nothing to do with the government.
Good luck David, The Landlords should be able to decide if they wish to accommodate tobacco users, and keep their pubs open. Local-ism at it's best,it can transform our communities, and foster a more vibrant economy.
All power to David Nuttall. Put the decision back in the hands of the landlords – they KNOW their customers. If the majority of their customers want a no smoking, or a smoking pub then that’s what they will choose to offer. As a customer, I will choose which of the resulting establishments I frequent.
Well done David Nuttal for tabling this bill. As much as I'm loath to praise a Tory (!) this is really good work.
I notice a definite change in people's opinions since the ban - while common opinion was broadly for "something being done" at the time, many people now recognise the problems caused by such an overbearing restriction. While Labour is out of power, it's vital that the Coalition amend (if not repeal) the ban and grant people a more reasonable position on smoking in private premises.
The prohibitionists can rant and rave, but they're increasingly looking like a crazed extremist faction. All remotely liberal MPs should (at the very least) support an amendment to the ban.
I do hope sense will prevail and the smoking ban will be recinded, as much as I think this unlikely with the health police about determined to force everyone to fit in to their narrow view of life and how it should be lived.
I hardly go out for a drink these days, and this is only because of the ban. All the pubs and clubs I used to go barring 2 have closed since the ban, and all my friends who worked in pubs and clubs have lost their jobs as result. Even one of my friends who was initially in favour as he hated smoky places now is against the smoking ban as it has ruined his social life.
Never has a piece of legislation done so much harm, when it was supposedly meant to do so much good.
What a pity his request will only apply to England - I live in Scotland which has suffered this for longer!
Maybe this time members will recognise that the anti-smoking lobby made many false promises about the social and financial effects of the ban and certainly ignored the opinions of the many millions of smokers. It's a sad day when this country is incapable of affording warmth and comfort to ALL its citizens. There were few 'smoke-filled' pubs before the ban because many worked hard to provide a clean environment and, unlike Government, were successful because they tried their best to provide for all.
A limited Ban, with Freedom of Choice for non-food Pubs and Clubs *as promised in the 2005 Labour Manifesto* is the ONLY fair, respectful and tolerant way to deal with this problem.
The rate of pub closures quadrupled immediately the total ban came in, costing tens of thousands of jobs, heaping more misery on pubs already crippled by PubCo's and Supermarket prices.
Everyone except the tiny minority of Anti-Smoking Radicals can see that turning people outside into inadequate or non-existant shelters is disrespectful intolerance which smacks of the rightfully outlawed practice of racial segregation. THIS TOTAL BAN IS DISCRIMINATION.
The whole point of progress in a civilised society is to maximise tolerance and to accomodate and respect minorities. This total smoking ban is UNchristian, UNcivilized, INtolerant, and DISrespectful. The sooner it is relaxed the sooner we can repair this SHAMEFUL new form of discrimination in our society.
I cannot think of anything the Conservatives could do which would get them male working class votes than that. It would mean a significant amount of criticism from PC media types but none of them vote Conservative anyway. It could even put some blue water between Tories & LibDims.
More important in real terms, though not in Westminster ones, is that there is no evidence whatsoever that passive smoking kills (& even if there had been if that was the problem better air extractors would have been the answer). The ban has, however, made lots of smoker's lives less happy & indeed was designed to.
I may be biased since I said this at the Scottish LibDem conference when they first voted for the ban & indeed was the only person to speak directly against it. It was an example of the unspeakably politically correct in pursuit of the common people.
I strongly believe landlords should decide for their own business. I live in Athens and 80% refuse to obey to the smoking ban,which failed last year,and rather this year too.. we have a different system with unemployment-almost no benefits-many people lose their jobs,and it seems when under stress and insecurity we smoke more. Good luck!
Lets roll back the Labour dictatorship. As a non smoker I was and am totaly against the total ban. Germany has let landlords decide so has Spain. France takes no notice.
Any relaxation in the ban now would mean pubs and clubs will be opening themselves up to health claims by workers "injured" by patrons' smoke.
I know the usual suspects will argue that people choose to work in a smoke-filled environment, but I'm not sure that employment law makes that distinction (i.e. employers need to protect their employees from harm).
One of the key reasons the large pub chains pushed for a full ban, rather than a partial ban, is that they were most at risk of class-action lawsuits from employees... smaller pubs would escape (it's not worth suing the Cat and Ferret when you have Wetherspoons' £££s in your sights) which would have forced the large chains to introduce a 100% smoke-free estate, thereby driving custom to smaller venues.
There's no chance now of succesfully arguing against the prevailing view that second-hand smoke causes harm, so any pub worker with a cough will be able to go after their employers for compensation.
The very best of luck! The smoking ban was always iniquitous. Smoking is still legal in this country and the anti-smokers (thought police) who lobbied for the ban would like everything they disapprove of banned.There are still thousands of bars in France and Spain who do not enforce this stupid rule. It is no business of the government (even in the worst of nanny states) to forbid us a legal choice. Give publicans the freedom to do what they like, provided the non-smokers are catered for, and leave the rest of us the choice -and the pubs to survive.
The very best of luck! The smoking ban was always iniquitous. Smoking is still legal in this country and the anti-smokers (thought police) who lobbied for the ban would like everything they disapprove of banned.There are still thousands of bars in France and Spain who do not enforce this stupid rule. It is no business of the government (even in the worst of nanny states) to forbid us a legal choice. Give publicans the freedom to do what they like, provided the non-smokers are catered for, and leave the rest of us the choice -and the pubs to survive.
Breaking News: Smoking is Unhealthy. Thanks to all commenters who pointed this out.
But.
This is nothing to do with health, it's all to do with mean-spiritedness and finger-wagging. It is socially divisive, and bad for the hospitality industry in general and pubs in particular, who are still waiting for all those non-smokers to front up like we wuz promised. Well, they're not going to, so lift the ban in pubs and I and 10s of thousands of others who know that pubs are for grown-ups who enjoy a pint and a smoke and a chat with their pals will come back in a flash. And that's a promise.
Put the choice back to the Pub owner. Pubs are private property. Smoking bans walk all over the rights of private property. Let the market or the publican decide . After all they are the ones who have had to to police this nonsense.
In so many rural communities the pub is the centre of most social activity - the football club meet - the cricket club meet ( including a few beers afterwards ). People of all ages but more importantly the elderly and of those - the lonely- could find companoinship on a cold winter's night. The smoke filled atmosphere maybe not too healthy - who knows - but it is certainly preferable to the empty coldness of so many chairs and tables with no people that greets you in many many pubs today. Let the publican decide !!!
What is Brussels Declaration http://www.brusselsdeclaration.org/pages/brussels_declaration/
http://www.velvetgloveironfist.com/pdfs/PassiveSmoking.pdf Are Smoking bans necessary http://www.democracyinstitute.org/Images/PDF/DI_Public_Smoking_Ban_Report.pdf
Select committee on internal affairs 5th Report also states:- 84. The evidence we took on passive smoking leads us to doubt whether government guidelines on risk management have been properly implemented. In particular, the purpose of legislation should have been defined more clearly and greater attention should have been given to available scientific evidence, the relative merits of alternative policy options and the impact of legislation on personal freedom and choice. Failure to consider these matters properly has resulted in the introduction of a policy that appears to demonstrate a disproportionate response to the problem. Lessons learned from the progress of this legislation should be used to ensure that future policy responses are transparent, evidence-based, and proportionate.
This is exactly the type of common sense compromise that pubs and freedom lovers have been crying out for. The smoking ban was grossly disproportionate and in my view was the single worst thing New Labour inflicted upon this country.
I often see an elderly man who is in his eighties (I know this as I once chatted to him) sitting outside a coffee shop with a cigarette. He lives on his own and tries to get out once a day to see people. To be able to sit in the warmth and have a cigarette, and exchange a friendly smile with someone is denied him. What must he think? I get more colds now due to having to smoke in the open, so I imagine this gentleman does, but at more than 25 years my senior, he must suffer more than I do. Genuine caring and kindness comes from tolerance and understanding, not bullying and judging. Unlike many European countries UK citizens are respectful of laws, whereas a ban can exist in say, Spain, but be gently overlooked, so a European wide ban does not mean a total eradication of smoking in public places. Those who feel smokers are lepers have much to learn about themselves. They are not free of habits, and are ignorant of the fact that they are making a rod for their own back. Not much fun for us smokers while they peddle their own baggage so to speak, but I would still rather be me than a know-all, who thinks bullying is the way to health. As if.. www.calmrise.com
Non smokers have absolutely nothing to fear from an easing of the smoking ban. All that is being asked for is for pubs, restaurants and clubs to be given the choice of allowing smoking or not allowing smoking. Thus giving both smokers and non smokers a fair and free choice.
Yes it's time to repeal this New labour nonesense law on smoking. I have recently been in Spain also EU territory, and 95% of all bars and clubs have smoking in them (both inside and out) so why not the UK. Please give us smoking pensioners back our Social ability to visit the pub and see our friends. Good luck & thanks.
In so many rural communities the pub is the centre of most social activity - the football club meet - the cricket club meet ( including a few beers afterwards ). People of all ages but more importantly the elderly and of those - the lonely- could find companionship on a cold winter's night. The smoke filled atmosphere maybe not too healthy - who knows - but it is certainly preferable to the empty coldness of so many chairs and tables with no people that greets you in many many pubs today. Let the publican decide !!!
Some common sense at last and for once someone admitting that the smoking ban is the major cause of pubs closing, (apart from the ones asking regulars who smoke to a private room) The vocal ex smokers and anti smokers have had it all too much their way and not even they can honestly say that an outright ban is fair or democratic, at least I dont recall the populous being asked to vote on thjis or id cards.
Good riddance loony labour and best of luck with this attemopt at a very small concession.
I wish Mr Nuttall all the luck in the world with this. As a smoker I haven't been in a pub except on two family occasions -- where I had no real option --, since the smoking ban. It would be wonderful to get a little bit of my old social life back again.
I wish Mr Nuttall all the luck in the world with this. As a smoker I haven't been in a pub except on two family occasions -- where I had no real option --, since the smoking ban. It would be wonderful to get a little bit of my old social life back again.
With the UK still in economic meltdown as we struggle with benefits and immigrations sytems out of a control, plus an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, is this really all Nuttall has to do?
Its great to be in a minority of one, and on a subject which has attracted such a huge response! Previously as a non smoker I was pushed into a mean corner of most pubs to get a fume and smelly free zone. Now I have a free choice of everywhere.
Pubs are great now- bad news if you are a smoker - dedums you have to forego your nasty fag for 2 hours. Quelle sacrifice - stupid with your health and mean and unsociable with it.
I was opposed to the original ban see my first post - there should have been a maximum 25% of floorspace given to properly vented smoking, with pubs not qualifying if they could not support a minimum or suitable area. But that was then - and before everyone gets worked up a 10 minute rule bill is going nowhere.
Finally someone with some balls and a bit of common sense. I doubt if it will be successful but fair play for tabling the bill. I am a British citizen living in Ireland and if you think the ban has done damage in the UK you should come have a look at the state of the the pub trade over here. Now that we have such bigger problems facing us with the economy can we please go back to giving people and landlords responsibility to make the rules in their own properties and make their own choices rather than forcing this nanny state propaganda down peoples throats. I am all for the rights of non-smokers and smokers alike, why can't we compromise with an amendment which suits most smokers and a lot of reasonable non-smokers too. There is just no reasoning with the anti-smokers so who cares about them. Best of luck tomorrow!
lets do Wat labour promised and allow landlords to decide then smokers wont have to stand outside i am non smoker of about ten years people need a choice yors jim dyson (oldham)
Good stuff, says this non-smoker of some seven years. I'd happily take up the week again if only to puff smoke in the face of the anti-smoking Puritans.
It was always a bad piece of legislation. It was never needed in the first place. Just politicians making work for themselves and nibbling away at freedoms. They should all be spending less time in parliament and more time with their constituents, that is after all their primary business.
From personal experience it would appear that in Spain the landlord decides. Sensible. In the last month I walked into a bar in Denmark and was amazed/delighted to see ashtrays on the bar and the tables. [Sadly, it was the only good thing about Denmark!] Prior to the new law most pubs had smoking and non-smoking areas. LET THE LANDLORDS DECIDE.
Many thanks to you and other Members who are prepared to speak up for a struggling industry, as well as for a large (increasingly downtrodden and alienated) group of citizens.
Finally, we have an MP with a sense of perspective who is actually prepared to take the initiative. I doubt if we are about to see a reversal of the disproportionate, oppressive and authoritarian legislation introduced by labour, but it’s a start.
This spiteful ban has caused social isolation for millions. Not just smokers. I am a non smoker and my husband smokes. We always used to go out together. He has refused to go to a pub since the ban and consequently I have had to stay home as well. I would not go out without him as 50 years married is too long to change my ways. We are both in our late 70's now and could not stand outside in all weathers. We would freeze to death.
I must add my unequivocal support of lifting the ban to the many voices above. The ban had little to do with health and much to do with the spite and nastiness of a small group of zealots prepared to distort, omit and misrepresent the evidence to their own bigoted ends.
As winter approaches and country pubs start the logs blazing in the grates, and as the air fills with nitroxides, benzenes, cyanides and long-chain organic carcinogens in the woodsmoke, the smokers huddled outside are technically breathing purer air; the fervent anti-smoker piously prideful in their bijou North London home in the shadow of the Westway breathes more poison each day in their own home than a month's exposure to smokers in the Dog and Duck in Loamshire.
Let landlords make commercial decisions. We all know the score.
Wallenstein: Could you point me to a case where this has, actually, happened? The only attempts I'm aware of have failed with Judicial comments such as it being impossible to ascribe general statistics in the population to a specific case! Maybe the previous Govt. succeeded in frightening the population into compliance.
This whole thing is unadulterated garbage. Like Fisher, a statistician, I even doubt Doll's efforts. Of course, it took a statistician to shout foul as one medic will rarely contradict another's diagnosis, however weak.
Well done Mr Nuttall. If something isn't done soon a centuries old mainstay of British life will disappear forever. The best of luck bringing about the end of this bit of indefensible New Labour nanny-statism propped up with dubious statistics and misinformation and a return to common sense and tolerance. I look forward to raising a glass to you in a smoky bar somewhere soon.
I wish Mr Nuttall the very best with his sensible Bill. He is a man of true courage and he holds a well reasoned position. A position supported with good quality data. This is however not the way to change political will, rather use poor data to support preposterous positions and introduce smoker/non-smoker apartheid. Who'd have thought that would pass the rigorous scrutiny of our elected house? Mr Nuttall's Bill would potentially reverse the economic, social, intellectual and cultural ruin precipitated by divisive legislation like the smoking ban in the Health Act. Three cheers to the man. If only common sense would prevail. Smokers are being treated like social outcasts. One might expect such behaviour from tyrannical or despot regimes, but a British Parliament..WTF!
Well done David Nuttall. Just a brief perusal of the comments on this blog should be enough to persuade most fair minded MP's that a repeal / amendment to the smoking ban would be a positive step.
I think it is absolutely tragic to have lost so much of our heritage in the form of pub closures. All to appease a small (if vocal) minority of health fascists.
Having taken the trouble to post a comment, free from slander and profanity, only to have it censored anyway, I'd very much appreciate some inkling as to why you object to it enough to have censored it.
Here in Germany the landlord decides the smoking policy in pubs and restaurants. The smoke-averse have their own bars or separate sections, though these are invariably quiet. The atmosphere in the bars is so much better than the sterile, transit rooms that masquerade as pubs post-ban in UK. Being in a country which still allows choice exposes the absurdity of the blanket ban, and here they mock the capitulation of the infantilised brits.
Pubs, landlords, club-owners: they all deserve to have the liberty of deciding whether they will permit or prohibit smoking. A blanket ban on smoking is an incredibly daft idea.
Since the smoking ban was introduced I personally haven't gone out socialising as I don't see the point in paying good money to stand outside a door. Lets hope the politicians see some sense. I would really enjoy a good night out with company
May I suggest a possible solution? Why not allow say one pub in each village become a smoking venue with the rest remaining non smoking and then just wait to see which establishment survives, this would be an evolutionary experiment which I am sure would even interest Darwin. This assumes of course that the village still has more than one pub surviving post smoking ban.
Having seen so many pubs disappear in the area I live, I wrote to our MP. He replied that 'few people in the brewing industry believe the smoking ban to be the real problem and blame changing consumer habits and general economic factors' He finished by saying 'I am prevented by parliamentary protocol from signing EDM's and I am not convinced that a majority of people want to see a relaxation of the present rules' This is someone who is a member of the All Party 'Save the Pub ' Group in Parliament! Personally I would like to see a change to allow some relaxation to the draconian rules. Well done Mr Nuttall.
Having seen so many pubs disappear in the area I live, I wrote to our MP. He replied that 'few people in the brewing industry believe the smoking ban to be the real problem and blame changing consumer habits and general economic factors' He finished by saying 'I am prevented by parliamentary protocol from signing EDM's and I am not convinced that a majority of people want to see a relaxation of the present rules' This is someone who is a member of the All Party 'Save the Pub ' Group in Parliament! Personally I would like to see a change to allow some relaxation to the draconian rules. Well done Mr Nuttall.
David Nuttall speaks common sense, and thank you to Iain Dale for providing a public forum on the subject. Like some others here, I voted Conservative at the last election, in the hope of seeing our personal freedoms restored. A repeal of the smoking ban, or an amendment to it, was primary amongst these. Only 25% of Conservative MPs voted for the ban, so my hopes were high, and are renewed by Mr. Nuttall's early day motion.
Not only is the ban an affront to civil liberties, and unnecessary, but the prervious government's own figures showed them what havoc it would wreak in the hospitality industry. Although only approximately 25% of the adult populace smoke, that figure rises to over 50% in terms of the clientele of pubs. The year before the ban, some 400 pubs closed, largely due to the recession. In the year of the ban, that figure rose to about 1500, and then a further 2500 or so the following year! One would have to be in a serious state of denial not to accept the link between the smoking ban and the massive increase in pub closures.
Furthermore, the last figures that I heard quoted (on the BBC) regarding the NHS, around the time of the ban, were that smoking-related diseases cost the NHS £1.3 Billion to treat, but the income from tobacco taxation in the same year was £13 Billion - ten times! Especially in these constrained times, that is an economic equation that makes sense for the public purse.
On the subject of the NHS, that was where the plans for the ban originated. I have read an original strategy document, that was clearly intentional social engineering, with little recourse to the truth. Those of you who have read the Act, and the NHS guidance, will have noted that the government quoted their own passive smoking study, and the US government's study, as supporting evidence for passive smoking causing cancer, but that they just vaguely refer to the only comprehensive study, produced by the World Health Organisation. This is because the latter, which drew on every study performed, concluded that all studies conflict, and there is no proof of passive smoking causing or not causing cancer, even just statistically, one way or the other. In other words, nobody knows!
It is abundantly clear that the previous government introduced the ban because of their own socio-political agenda, in spite of the fact that the evidence did not support them. Thank you to David Nuttall for bringing the issue back onto the agenda where hopefully, common sense, economic realities, and the traditional Conservative ground of civil liberties, will prevail.
David Nuttall speaks common sense, and thank you to Iain Dale for providing a public forum on the subject. Like some others here, I voted Conservative at the last election, in the hope of seeing our personal freedoms restored. A repeal of the smoking ban, or an amendment to it, was primary amongst these. Only 25% of Conservative MPs voted for the ban, so my hopes were high, and are renewed by Mr. Nuttall's early day motion.
Not only is the ban an affront to civil liberties, and unnecessary, but the prervious government's own figures showed them what havoc it would wreak in the hospitality industry. Although only approximately 25% of the adult populace smoke, that figure rises to over 50% in terms of the clientele of pubs. The year before the ban, some 400 pubs closed, largely due to the recession. In the year of the ban, that figure rose to about 1500, and then a further 2500 or so the following year! One would have to be in a serious state of denial not to accept the link between the smoking ban and the massive increase in pub closures.
Furthermore, the last figures that I heard quoted (on the BBC) regarding the NHS, around the time of the ban, were that smoking-related diseases cost the NHS £1.3 Billion to treat, but the income from tobacco taxation in the same year was £13 Billion - ten times! Especially in these constrained times, that is an economic equation that makes sense for the public purse.
On the subject of the NHS, that was where the plans for the ban originated. I have read an original strategy document, that was clearly intentional social engineering, with little recourse to the truth. Those of you who have read the Act, and the NHS guidance, will have noted that the government quoted their own passive smoking study, and the US government's study, as supporting evidence for passive smoking causing cancer, but that they just vaguely refer to the only comprehensive study, produced by the World Health Organisation. This is because the latter, which drew on every study performed, concluded that all studies conflict, and there is no proof of passive smoking causing or not causing cancer, even just statistically, one way or the other. In other words, nobody knows!
It is abundantly clear that the previous government introduced the ban because of their own socio-political agenda, in spite of the fact that the evidence did not support them. Thank you to David Nuttall for bringing the issue back onto the agenda where hopefully, common sense, economic realities, and the traditional Conservative ground of civil liberties, will prevail.
Walk down any high street and see a group of people, huddling together, outside a pub (etc), creating a veritable cloud of smoke - Welcome to visitors to the once Great Britain.
Allow those same people inside, into a warm atmosphere, in their own space and you have happy smokers and a better image for visitors to our country.
As for the staff serving, only allow smokers to serve - or people who are prepared to share what little second hand smoke escapes modern air filters.
The ban on smokers is an affront to Human Rights.
I wish you well David Nuttall - may you start to crack open this ridiculous ruling, ignored by our more intelligent and less sheep-like neighbours in Europe.
A HUGE thank you to David Nuttall for bring forward this bill - a common sense approach is needed for both civil liberties and to economically assist pub landlords to stay in business - a repeal would bring back business
The Smoking Ban is Labour all over: dishonest, divisive, undemocratic social-engineering and delivered through a love-in with Labour's publicly-funded quangocracy.
Every time I see old people outside a British Legion club, I am reminded of the callous authoritarianism that underpins socialist attitudes.
I was stunned when Labour actually followed suit with Scotlands left wing government and introduced a nationwide archaic smoking ban without considering the economic effects to pubs, clubs and gaming outlets etc.
I personally have not been into a pub, club or restaurant since the ban was introduced, nor have any of my friends both smokers and none smokers - entertaining at home has become the norm.
If most smoking or pub going Labour voters realised that the Tories would never have introduced a ban like this - they would'nt have voted Labour, but what you hear from Labour voters is "the Tories would have done it to" - nonsense!
It's appalling to see people stood in the street with cigarettes after they have bought a drink etc.
It was typical of Labour and their 13 years in office to introduce such a nasty archaic law without consideration for all involved - I am sure that now we have a rational fair government in power at last - we will see an end if not an amendment to this disgraceful law !
I work in the medical profession and fully understand the dangers of smoking and second hand smoke, but I am also fed up with having personal freedoms curtailed. I have given this matter much thought and although I do not smoke, I cannot see the problem with providing well-ventilated smoking rooms in pubs. Many of my friends smoke and they no longer visit pubs, consequently, five local pubs near to me have closed. I would now have to drive to get to the nearest pub (pointless)! The ban has resulted in pub closures, gangs of people hanging around outside pubs and a distinct lack of atmosphere inside pubs. Let people make their own choices!
Put an end to the Nanny State. Let hard working people run their businesses without interference. Let Landlords create smoking rooms, membership clubs or whatever they feel is needed to get their livelihoods up and running again. AND put an end to elderly people sitting on the doorsteps of their locals or coffee shops or working mens' clubs. These people probably fought for our freedom and look what we have done to them . . .
Put an end to the Nanny State. Let hard working people run their businesses without interference. Let Landlords create smoking rooms, membership clubs or whatever they feel is needed to get their livelihoods up and running again. AND put an end to elderly people sitting on the doorsteps of their locals or coffee shops or working mens' clubs. These people probably fought for our freedom and look what we have done to them . . .
Landlords should have the freedom to choose when it comes to making the decision of whether to allow smoking or not. It's that simple. In a free society there is no other solution.
Thank you Iain and David Nuttall for standing up for freedom.
I very much doubt that lifting the smoking ban will help too many pubs.
The price of beer may be one reason why so few people go there. CAMRA say some 57 pubs are closing a month. One landlord points out on their website 'my electricity company are ripping me off for £70 per day, the brewery take £1000 pw, gas; £350pw, business rates are over £350pw, etc, etc,'
Its highly unlikely that any pub which sells food would be able to allow smoking and very very few pubs will stop selling food. But if your correspondents Mr Dale want to return to something like a Victorian opium den for their entertainment, well maybe we should let them.
BTW I went to the CAMRA beer festival in August and everyone there seemed very happy to eat and drink without the sustenance of a fag.
I fully support David Nuttall and it is finally refreshing to find an MP with not only the common sense to see and acknowledge the harm this divisive legislation has done but who is also man enough to stand up and be counted in terms of doing something positive to try and put right a law that was so dreadfully wrong in the first place.
From my own perspective, being a sufferer of depression, stress and anxiety, it has caused me and many others like me to be isolated and have little or no social life which is one of the worse things possible for sufferers of depression, stress and anxiety. My psychiatrist has said that were it not for the ban I should have been off medication well before now. I had managed my depression without medication prior to the ban or the need for appointments with a psychiatrist, as had many other people who suffered thus on a relatively marginal basis.
I sincerely hope that people like myself, smokers and non smokers, as non smokers suffering from depression have also suffered from lack of socialising due to dwindling numbers in pubs and clubs, can count on much support for the 10-Minute Rule Bill being tabled by David Nuttall.
I fully support David Nuttall and it is finally refreshing to find an MP with not only the common sense to see and acknowledge the harm this divisive legislation has done but who is also man enough to stand up and be counted in terms of doing something positive to try and put right a law that was so dreadfully wrong in the first place.
From my own perspective, being a sufferer of depression, stress and anxiety, it has caused me and many others like me to be isolated and have little or no social life which is one of the worse things possible for sufferers of depression, stress and anxiety. My psychiatrist has said that were it not for the ban I should have been off medication well before now. I had managed my depression without medication prior to the ban or the need for appointments with a psychiatrist, as had many other people who suffered thus on a relatively marginal basis.
I sincerely hope that people like myself, smokers and non smokers, as non smokers suffering from depression have also suffered from lack of socialising due to dwindling numbers in pubs and clubs, can count on much support for the 10-Minute Rule Bill being tabled by David Nuttall.
sedLong before July 2007 my social club had smoking and non smoking rooms, everybody was happy and the club was thriving. Along came the ludicrous smoking ban (dragging is unintended consequences with it) and within a few month members using our club started to wane.
3Years on, commercially the club is in dire straits, nothing to do with the price of beer (Still only £2 per pint) nothing to do with supermarkets (they only get trade because tobacco enthusiasts stay at home to smoke and drink) nothing to do with the economy (the number of members using the club were falling far earlier the when the current economic crisis started)there is only one reason and one reason only THE SMOKING BAN.
David Nuttall is talking common sense, give the landlord/club committee the right to choose to serve their customers as they see fit.
WE DONT NEED GOVERNMENT TO DICTATE OUR CHOICES ONLY TO EDUCATE AND THEN GO AWAY.
Thank you so much for putting forward a Bill to Repeal the dreadful Smoking Ban which has absolutely crippled the Pub trade and taken away our personal freedom. The punters voted with their feet against the unpopular smoking ban and now so many pubs, clubs & bingo halls have sadly closed. We must preserve British traditions, like socializing in pubs and clubs... Decisions about smoking in adult establishments must be turned around to give adults a choice. Publicans should be given back the right to choose what they allow in their establishments! ...and we should be given back the right and freedom to socialize without having to stand outside every five minutes if we want a cigarette. Smoking establishments could display a warning sign at every entrance to prevent any offence to non smokers. PLEASE give us back our right to smoke in adult establishments now!
I feel sure our government should recognize that there are still millions of folk who smoke. The outright ban has done untold damage to their social lives and has destroyed thousands of venues from bingo halls to pubs hotels and social clubs up and down the land, all because they were denied the right to accommodate smokers. Other country's were able to reach a compromise and our government should look again at this option.
Trevorsden: CAMRA supported the smoking ban so your 'revelation' really isn't surprising. They're starting to become worried though as they are now classed as binge-drinkers (we did warn them). Yes, every one at that festival was officially binge-drinking and would be counted as such in government figures.
The argument against the ban is simple. There is a vast amount of people in this country who would like an alternative (comments here prove that beyond doubt), and the fact that there is not a single pub or club out of around 50,000 which is allowed an exemption is quite stunningly dictatorial.
Unfortunately, Nuttall has little chance of succeeding, but that says a lot about how hideous our politicians have become. A primarily Tory government is now quite happy to prohibit, by law, an owner from allowing people to smoke on his property, even if they have become members and are quite happy with the laughably minimal risks of passive smoking. (and don't talk of staff - there are safe levels of toxins, kept there via extraction and ventilation, in foundry workers and other heavy industrial trades. To equate cig smoke with heavy metals and asbestos etc is quite ludicrous).
It's the most absurd and hysterical law ever produced by Westminster that even the owner himself is criminalised for smoking on his property just in case someone else walks in hours later.
Sadly, that's the state of current politics - a blithe dismissal of sections of the population in favour of an opinion poll-fearful tyranny of the majority.
If they had an ounce of intellect, they'd be advocating smoking and non-smoking pubs, but then the EU would be very unhappy ... now, wouldn't they?
"As it is, it will take years for clean, well run, smoke free pubs to rebuild the appeal of pubbing among the non-smoking majority who wereby and large driven out of pubs and clubs by landlords permitting unfettered smoking."
Nobody, was ever BANNED from investing their OWN money into smoke-free venues, so you were driven out by NO-ONE. That is the differance with this spiteful ban. Loneliness is a killer, how many pipe-smokers do you see just "nipping outside" for a smoke. I and many others may have thought our pub days were over. I hope we are wrong. Thank you Iain for this blog. mandyv
Good luck to David Nuttall. How any Tory can support a piece of legislation that distorts market forces to the point that over 10% of the industry evaporates and 100,000 jobs are lost in just 3 years is beyond me. Especially when it's based on absolute junk science, has had no benefit on health, infringes on private property rights (no, not a right to smoke, the right to choose what you allow or disallow on your private property), was in no manifesto, when poll after poll asserts that more want it repealed or amended than do not and has, as early indicators seem to show, led to an increase in smoking rates (well done Labour and ASH!) then it just has to go. If some kind of restriction were to remain (and personally I'm against it - let the owner of the property decide what is best for his business) then something similar to the Spanish model is proven to provide smokefree environments WITHOUT loss of trade. The law as it stands is preposterous - the fact that a smoking landlord can't employ smoking staff to serve smoking customers in a private club where only informed, consenting members would be exposed to the "deadly" wisps of smoke is absurd beyond belief. Just who is the law protecting in such a circumstance?
Or another absurdity - smoking shelters need to be no more than 50% enclosed? Why, when only smokers are in there? What if it was 55% enclosed? Would it suddenly beome a deadly environment where no-one was safe? What about 60%? Or 80%? Or 90%, at which point the smoking shelter is essentially a separate room with a window? What is the problem when only smokers are in there? The whole 50% rule just stinks of vindictiveness and spite. I still have to hear one good argument against wholly separate smoking rooms - indeed, litter, noise complaints and smokers standing at the entrance would no longer exist and anti-smokers could theoretically never have their delicate sensibilities offended by the sight of someone subsidisng the NHS for them again... unless they deliberately walked into it. Which I wouldn't put past them, of course.
I am so angry about the smoking ban Government have no right to ban a Legal, Hugely Taxed, Product. My business, is exactly that. If you do not smoke do not come into the Privately Owned Venues that want to stay afloat and cater to the people that do. No bail out for the people that Own Venues that have gone bust thanks to this interfering, just get to hell out of the way with the petty laws/rules/regulations and let us All get back to work.
The true motivations behind this ban were shown from the start when even the possibility of non-staffed, separately ventilated, comfortable indoor rooms for smokers and their friends were ruled out.
There has never yet been a scientific study showing any harm to people/staff outside of such rooms because not even the wildest and craziest antismoking nutsos can come up with one. Even the loonies pushing the idea of "Thirdhand Smoke" don't try to make a real argument against well-designed smoking rooms: they're simply not allowed because they'd go against the entire ASH social engineering concept of, as NY's Mayor Bloomberg put it "our commitment to make smoking as uncomfortable, inconvenient, and expensive as possible."
Lead the way Britannia!
Michael J. McFadden Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
So much for the notion that smokers have accepted - even LIKe - the ban. Give me some pubs to go to where I can have the kind of evening I'm prepared to pay for (ie NOT one where I have to stand ourside in the cold if I want a ciggie)and I will happily put the money I've been spending going abroad for holidays to smoker friendly countries money back into the UK economy.Otherewise - forget it
I don't go anywhere where I can't smoke. What's a point of going to the pub, hanging with friends and have a few drinks, if I can't enjoy in cigarette? And, I would like, very much, to know where were all these non-smokers until now? At their homes? They didn't go to restaurants and clubs? I doubt. I live in Serbia, and here, you can lite a cigarette wherevere you want. Even in officess. Why they don't make "cages" and cabbins for non-smokers, THEY are outnumbered!
I completely support Mr Nuttal's initiative. The last government came into power in 2005 with a mandate for a partial smoking ban, but instead, cowed by the smug baying masses of the holier-than-thou politically correct, it put in place one of the most draconian anti-smoking regimes on the planet. I voted Labour for 40 years - never again! I'm sick to death of being regarded as some sort of loathsome pariah, whereas before July '07 I was just an ordinary member of the public. My view of governments is now permanently altered. We are galloping towards a control-freak society in which being an adult will have lost its meaning. LET THE LANDLORDS DECIDE.
Good luck on your motion Mr. Nuttall. Its nice to see an MP actually speak sense and reflect public opinion - choice. Instead of the amnesic management-speak babbling of many politicians, particularly from the Labour party.
Since the smoking ban the percentage of people smoking in the UK has remained basically the same around 22%. The actual costs to the NHS are around £2.7bn. Even at very high estimates of the costs to the NHS of £5bn a year attributed to smoking related illnesses, the revenue from tax from tobacco sales is still £10bn per year. Smokers are not a drain on the NHS.
This motion will not force a pub to allow smoking, its about choice and fairness.
You have the right to setup a pub that prohibits smoking. We should have the right to setup a pub that allows smoking.
On July 1st 2007, one of the most spiteful and vindictive pieces of legislation crawled its way onto the statute book…the iniquitous smoking ban. If you remember this was a blanket ban that Labour said it would never introduce…in fact they offered us a compromise, which I voted for and so did millions of others, only to find that we would be betrayed in the most callous way.
Do you remember their promise to us in return for our votes? Let me remind you.
LABOUR MANIFESTO PLEDGE 2005
‘all pubs and bars preparing and serving food will be smoke-free; and other pubs and bars will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free. In membership clubs the members will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free’.
Speaks for itself – doesn’t it?
Of course the reality as we all know is completely different.
Little did we know that the smoking ban would bring an unbridled persecution and pariah status for anyone who dared to enjoy a legal product – tobacco!
Social culture would be devastated; thousands of businesses in the hospitality industry would be wiped out causing mass unemployment, and millions of long lasting friendships would be desecrated at a stroke. This nasty legislation has driven a poisonous wedge between decent honourable people…setting friend against friend, creating anger and distrust where none before existed. What right has any politician got in telling me or any other smoker that we can’t go down to our local pub and enjoy a smoke with our pint…that is the domain of the landlord or landlady…not some reprehensible and duplicitous half-wit politician.
One organisation that has done more than any other to bring about this intrusive social engineering is the self righteous ASH! Supposedly a charity, they have brought themselves into disrepute by becoming a professional political lobby group, and influencing politicians (which isn’t difficult) with regard to tobacco control – that is not their remit and never was. They also lie…saying that SHS (second hand smoke) kills, when neither they nor anyone else can present post-mortem evidence to validate this ludicrous claim.
It is now time for the parasites at ASH to fund their own propaganda, and not the already beleaguered taxpayer. Withdraw their funding NOW!
Iain, One of your unamed contributors used the term "deadly", I assume she/he/it is speaking of nicotine? If so, it's an odd comment considering the vast majority of smokers die of the same "disease" as non-smokers: old-age and, many others die of non-related conditions.
As to the rubbish postulated about risks of second-hand smoke, this is truly fatuous. It's an issue of a smell that many people don't like - I respect that. Separate spaces for smokers and non-smokers is a no-brianer - unless, of course, your objective is, shall we say, otherwise...?
I support this position taken by David Nuttall. Although I'm a smoker, I've supported non-smokers' rights throughout my life. All I'd like in return is a similar level of consideration.
I'd also suggest David Nuttall calls for smoking booths past security in UK airports as they have in Zurich and Frankfurt.
I don't want to smoke everywhere - never have. I just want to be able to smoke somewhere...
Im glad that someone is finally standing up for us smokers. Everyone sees the smoking ban as being a flat out ban on smoking in any public places, but if you actually dip into the regulation this isnt the case. Why still have smoking rooms in some european countries and hotels if thats true? :)
Anyway, im in favour of giving the pub or club owner the choice to decide whether he/she wishes to allow smoking or not. In this world where we stand so strongly alongside democracy, it should be only fair to give smokers as much rights as non smokers.
Im not saying that we should allow smoking while we are eating, even i find that horrible, but give people the choice to decide where they want to go, based on whether they can smoke there or not, is only fair for everyone.
I do wish the 10 minute Bill all the best. It's about time we had a return to common sense and conviviality and returned the British pub to the heart of the community. British culture is one inclusivity and it pains me to see such apartheid like laws in the country that I love.
All the other EU couontries seems to have 'compromised' with areas for smokers and non smokers - the outright ban is just not working - it is ruining businesses. Even non smokers are cojmplaining now that their pubs are going into decline due to the smoking ban - in fact the pub where I go to, the NON-SMOKERS stand OUTSIDE with the smokers - how ridiculous is that!!!
Good luck with the bill. There's no reason why a reasonable compromise can't be reached. It works in other EU countries so why not here? Landlords ought to be able to decide for themselves.
Non-smokers will not be affected by separate rooms with proper ventilation and it would certainly help reverse the stuggling fortunes of Britain's pubs.
With so many closing every week a part of the British way of life and social hub for communities is at risk of dying out. This bill would be good for smokers and non-smokers alike who enjoy visiting their local.
Recently retired Professor Philippe Even, world renowned pulmonologist and president of the prestigious Necker Research Institute for the last decade, comments in 'Le Parisien' in May 2010; On passive smoking studies;
“Clearly, the harm [of SHS] is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low”
On The 2002 IARC report on passive smoking;
“ It was creating a fear that is based on nothing … I do not think it is good to legislate on a lie.”
When asked why he was speaking out now, he replied;
"As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held to confidentiality. If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man."
One of the largest studies into passive smoking commissioned by anti-tobacco (WHO European study-Boffetta et al) found only ONE statistically significant result -
THAT PASSIVE SMOKE IS BENEFICIAL TO CHILDREN.
Results from the study showed neither harm nor benefit to non-smoking adults BUT, exposed children are LESS likely to suffer from serious diseases later in life!
Are there any more ethical / honest doctors or scientists out there who have the courage to speak out for truth in medical science ?
Even as a smoker I'm not asking for a repeal of the ban, just a logical one. Amongst other spurious claims by Labour were that ventilation systems would have to have the power of a jet engine! Utter rubish, as anyone who has been to most of Europe will know, it's perfectly feasible. Likewise, two smokers sharing a company vehicle are not allowed to smoke, because they would breathe in the second hand smoke of each other? This was an act of nasty, irrational vindictiveness by Hewitt and the Nanny State and has no basis on risk, is illogical and was designed to make smokers suffer for the sake of it. Please, let's follow France, where smoking rooms are allowed or Germany, where smaoking and non-smoking areas in bars work perfectly well - to the satisfaction of all voters!
A very good speech, David. I am saddened that the Proposal did not get enough Ayes this time but consoled by the fact that there are at least 80 odd MPs who have got some business/common sense. What we need now is a real push by some peaceful demonstrations and constituents contacting those MPs who voted against the proposal. How do we do this please? Any ideas anyone?
Good luck Mr Nuttall in your pursuit of freedom of choice, an issue wider than the sledgehammer, blanket ban on public smoking which has particularly devastated this country's ancient and fine pub tradition.
Normally a non-voter, I'll vote for any party proposing to repeal or modify this Orwellian legislation.
Good luck Mr Nuttall in your brave attempt to repeal or modify this Orwellian legislation.
Normally a non-voter, I'll vote for any party proposing change to the ban which has affected both my social life and my health (from standing outside pubs in freezing weather clutching my expensive and heavily taxed beer and smoking my legal and heavily taxed tobacco).
Good Luck, as a life long smoker I'm now an exsmoker. The Health act was draconian beyond belief and now it is time to amend a bad law.
Whilst I agree that the smoking ban is harming Pubs & Clubs little seems to said about secondary job loss. The Cabbies I meet regularly complain the ban hit thier trade and it's probably the same for local chipies and curry houses.
Finally, I don't think cheap beer is a cause for the pubs loss of trade but a consequence. Many people will stay at home and drink thier own beer, the scramble to gain means copetition. Still it might go some way to compensating the brewing industry from the loss of trade in the pubs and clubs.
A good turn out for common-sense for a back-bencher's motion so let's hope it's not too late for the 88 Ayes to back Brian Binley's EDM 406 (or a new one). We've heard Kevin Barron's 10 minutes of text-book exaggeration, lies and propaganda which are a credit to Hans Christian Anderson and so blatantly biased with no basis in fact - time for a reality check.
A good turn out for common-sense for a back-bencher's motion so let's hope it's not too late for the 88 Ayes to back Brian Binley's EDM 406 (or a new one). We've heard Kevin Barron's 10 minutes of text-book exaggeration, lies and propaganda, (a credit to Hans Christian Anderson) - blatant bias with no basis in fact - time for a reality check.
If I were one of the people in Kevin Barron's constituency who had lost their pub or a job in a pub or just a local resident who disagreed with the smoking ban then I would be standing outside his offices with a placard saying it's time he went as he doesn't live on this planet! I saw his speech and I was flabbergasted. He suggests that British technology is so bad that they don't make decent extractors! How can these people get into the House of Commons?
Since the smoking ban,I have started brewing my own beer. Just a small but an active protest.Better than just moaning about it whilst stood outside a pub in all weathers. Also as I can now entertain my friends with free beer and cigarettes. Reult their revenue is also being lost to the Governmentin tax revenues. mage. P.S. Growing tobacco is as easy as growing cabbage.Brewing beer is as easy as making tea, just needs more time in the pot. Result Beer approx 30p a pint,Cigs a few pence for papers and filters.
128 comments:
Good lad. And it sounds like a perfectly sensible bill. So he'll need all the luck in the world to succeed with it.
P.S. If the pub and club trade had had the foresight to avoid becoming the last compulsory smoking zones (voluntary and involuntary) they might still have a wide enough customer base to amintain their businesses.
As it is, it will take years for clean, well run, smoke free pubs to rebuild the appeal of pubbing among the non-smoking majority who wereby and large driven out of pubs and clubs by landlords permitting unfettered smoking.
Next up, time to get tough on the alcohol peddling industry that does so much to amke a misery of so many people's lives.
Backwards step - I was in favour of premises having the right to chose and being more tightly regulated on their smoking areas.
But we are where we are. And smoking is unhealthy.
Does this mean you support making more available this dangerous, antisocial, deadly drug, Iain?
His website:
http://davidnuttall.info/2010/10/10/why-the-smoking-ban-should-be-relaxed/
His entire argument is based on the economics with regard to pubs etc, no mention of dodgy statistics. Reading between the lines he may have decided it would not be expedient to take that line.
Still, a start - of sorts. Shame it'll be strangled at birth.
I'm an ex-labour voter from bury, Lancashire who voted Tory last time in part because it presented the possibility of an amendment to the smoking ban.
I really do hope this is a step in that direction.
It is about time adults in this country were treated as adults and allowed to make our own decisions about whether to smoke or not.
There was NEVER a need for a smoking ban in the first place. Modern Air Filtration Equipment can deal with Second Hand Smoke.
The Government needs to take this into account and allow Landlords of pubs and clubs (especially Private ones) the right of choice.
Yes. I am one of those people who will never enter a pub again, owing to the smoking ban.
I have also sadly had to leave my drama club's social night because of the ban. Why should I travel sixteen miles to attend, only to stand outside with others to smoke?
The same goes for my badminton club's after-game social get-together.
How was such a socially-divisive and iniquitous law ever allowed on our statute books?
Really doesn't matter what happens in the UK provincial Parliament, the EU is going to Legislate on smoking, and is even now preparing a pan-European smoking ban.
http://euobserver.com/9/31021
Good, at last someone who supports choice. As Lord Young recently said if people wish to take risks with their own lives that's up to them. With modern technology there is no reason why a pub cannot be sufficiently well ventilated to ensure that smokers (perhaps with their own room) and non smokers can use the same premises.
I see the undemocratic righteous are bleating already - how typical!
Give people the choice - Britain is still, (theoretically), a democracy - allow landlords to choose whether their pub will permit smoking or not - if you don't like it, go to a non-smoking pub!
Problem solved, the pub trade will pick up again and fewer pubs will have to close permanently. What you people refuse to realise or admit is that high tax on alcohol is not the reason why so many pubs are closing, it's completely down to the smoking ban - get your blinkers off and take your heads out of the sand!
At last there are a few small signs that commonsense which has served Britsh society so well for so long but which the last government did its best to outlaw may be making a comeback.
David Nuttall's motion recognises the damage done not only to the economy but to personal liberty, community cohesion and respect for authority by trying to replace traditional British values of tolerance, diversity with heavy-handed, draconian, one-size-fits-all legislation.
Would that there were more like him in parliament.
Well done Mr Nuttal. Its about time somebody started to undo the oppressive boot regime imposed by the last government. Who needs terrorists when labour already took away our freedoms?
Treat us as adults and MPs will start to get back some respect.
I hope you will debunk the spurious claim that smoking costs the NHS, when the truth is it pays the entire NHS budget several times over.
BrianD
Well done. I think it has gone far enough with confining smokers to their homes. It's all abit like being under house arrest. Pubs should be allowed to have 'Smoking rooms' if they want or there should be 'Licensed Smoking Houses' that way the government could make some more money out of the smokers whilst appearing to be offering freedom of choice.
Good luck. Please get this hideous ban repealed and give property rights back to the landlords.
Non smokers dont need a total monopoly on every public place, just in cases they might want to go there one day. Give the choice back to the premesis owner.
Irrespective of paternalistic nannying and medical evidence, the simple matter of cultural choice should be paramount; go to a non-smoking pub if you insist - but allow us the right to sit in a warm indoor environment all night, not popping in & out, to a freeezing carpark or hastily-cobbled 'beer garden'.
Members-only clubs, patron-owned pubs, there has to be a way.
How come actors can still smoke in a scene being shot in this country, using unionised crew? One exception surely kyboshes the lot!
Why cant landlords and customers have a choice? Most pubs have separate bars, surely adults should be able to choose smoking or non-smoking. It would be interesting to see if pub profits went up if a choice was introduced. Good luck Iain.
Can someone please tell me why choice is such a bad thing? I want to have the choice of going into a pub or club that allows smoking. I want the choice of being able to mix with my friends socially - because we enjoy each other company - unfettered by whether we should feel guilty about having a drink ro a cigar. I want anyone who doesn't like that pub or club to have the choice to go somewhere else. Surely to God in the 21st century, the energy devoted by the sanctimonious, busybodies that make up the self-righteous health police, could be put to better use on some other project. Peddling the bikes attached to the generator, that powers the air extraction system, that makes the air fresh, for example.
I do not smoke, and would encourage anyone to stop, but I believe in basic freedoms, and Landlords should be free to run their pubs the way they seem fit, people should have a choice of entering a smoking or non smoking pub, so perhaps licences should be applied/granted at the outset.
so come on, lets kick big brother out, and give us our basic freedoms back!!!.
A real step in the right direction. A sensible life line to pubs that are shutting down at the rate of 28 a week...
A completely Separate area which non smokers don't have to go in to. No-ones arguing for a return to the old days, just common sense like all other European countries e.g Spain, France, Germany and last week even the Netherlands amended it's total ban.
Regardless of your feelings on smoking, it's not going to hurt anyone except those who choose to go in. Staff will only have to clean the area and will be exposed to only the same stale smoke levels as in a hotel room now in the UK in which it is legal to smoke a legal product.
I've asked my MP (James Duddridge) to support the motion. He didn't vote for the original ban, so I'm hopeful. We'll see.
As a lifelong non-smoker I am strongly in favour of having separate areas in pubs etc. where the fairly harmless addicts can smoke in peace. Sending them out onto the pavements actually increases the amount of smoke that non-smokers have to endure.
I have spent most of my working life in offices where someone/some people smoked regularly and the only time that reached the list of problems worth considering was when an officious young man came in and proposed taking a vote on turning our office into a Non-smoking zone - the non-smokers immediately declared that we would vote against it before the smoker got a word in edgeways...
Junkie Buster 2.22pm
"As it is, it will take years for clean, well run, smoke free pubs to rebuild the appeal of pubbing among the non-smoking majority who wereby and large driven out of pubs and clubs by landlords permitting unfettered smoking."
Who the hell are you kidding?, its been years, all thats happened is the smokers who used to use the pubs now stay at home, and the people who never went to pubs in the first place (apparently because of the smoking ban) still stay at home because they DON'T LIKE PUBS.
My local has two bars one was smoking one was non smoking- before the ban the non smoking side was empty and the smoking side was full. Now they're both dead.
It should be up to the landlord whether or not to allow it, and then up to the customers whether they wish to continue drinking in a pub that has smokers. It has nothing to do with the government.
which ban - there are four of them in the UK?
Good luck David,
The Landlords should be able to decide if they wish to accommodate tobacco users, and keep their pubs open. Local-ism at it's best,it can transform our communities, and foster a more vibrant economy.
Bob Howes
All power to David Nuttall. Put the decision back in the hands of the landlords – they KNOW their customers. If the majority of their customers want a no smoking, or a smoking pub then that’s what they will choose to offer. As a customer, I will choose which of the resulting establishments I frequent.
Well done David Nuttal for tabling this bill. As much as I'm loath to praise a Tory (!) this is really good work.
I notice a definite change in people's opinions since the ban - while common opinion was broadly for "something being done" at the time, many people now recognise the problems caused by such an overbearing restriction. While Labour is out of power, it's vital that the Coalition amend (if not repeal) the ban and grant people a more reasonable position on smoking in private premises.
The prohibitionists can rant and rave, but they're increasingly looking like a crazed extremist faction. All remotely liberal MPs should (at the very least) support an amendment to the ban.
Good luck David,
I do hope sense will prevail and the smoking ban will be recinded, as much as I think this unlikely with the health police about determined to force everyone to fit in to their narrow view of life and how it should be lived.
I hardly go out for a drink these days, and this is only because of the ban. All the pubs and clubs I used to go barring 2 have closed since the ban, and all my friends who worked in pubs and clubs have lost their jobs as result. Even one of my friends who was initially in favour as he hated smoky places now is against the smoking ban as it has ruined his social life.
Never has a piece of legislation done so much harm, when it was supposedly meant to do so much good.
What a pity his request will only apply to England - I live in Scotland which has suffered this for longer!
Maybe this time members will recognise that the anti-smoking lobby made many false promises about the social and financial effects of the ban and certainly ignored the opinions of the many millions of smokers.
It's a sad day when this country is incapable of affording warmth and comfort to ALL its citizens.
There were few 'smoke-filled' pubs before the ban because many worked hard to provide a clean environment and, unlike Government, were successful because they tried their best to provide for all.
A limited Ban, with Freedom of Choice for non-food Pubs and Clubs *as promised in the 2005 Labour Manifesto* is the ONLY fair, respectful and tolerant way to deal with this problem.
The rate of pub closures quadrupled immediately the total ban came in, costing tens of thousands of jobs, heaping more misery on pubs already crippled by PubCo's and Supermarket prices.
Everyone except the tiny minority of Anti-Smoking Radicals can see that turning people outside into inadequate or non-existant shelters is disrespectful intolerance which smacks of the rightfully outlawed practice of racial segregation.
THIS TOTAL BAN IS DISCRIMINATION.
The whole point of progress in a civilised society is to maximise tolerance and to accomodate and respect minorities.
This total smoking ban is UNchristian, UNcivilized, INtolerant, and DISrespectful. The sooner it is relaxed the sooner we can repair this SHAMEFUL new form of discrimination in our society.
I cannot think of anything the Conservatives could do which would get them male working class votes than that. It would mean a significant amount of criticism from PC media types but none of them vote Conservative anyway. It could even put some blue water between Tories & LibDims.
More important in real terms, though not in Westminster ones, is that there is no evidence whatsoever that passive smoking kills (& even if there had been if that was the problem better air extractors would have been the answer). The ban has, however, made lots of smoker's lives less happy & indeed was designed to.
I may be biased since I said this at the Scottish LibDem conference when they first voted for the ban & indeed was the only person to speak directly against it. It was an example of the unspeakably politically correct in pursuit of the common people.
I strongly believe landlords should decide for their own business.
I live in Athens and 80% refuse to obey to the smoking ban,which failed last year,and rather this year too..
we have a different system with unemployment-almost no benefits-many people lose their jobs,and it seems when under stress and insecurity we smoke more.
Good luck!
Lets roll back the Labour dictatorship. As a non smoker I was and am totaly against the total ban. Germany has let landlords decide so has Spain. France takes no notice.
Lets do it in England.
Any relaxation in the ban now would mean pubs and clubs will be opening themselves up to health claims by workers "injured" by patrons' smoke.
I know the usual suspects will argue that people choose to work in a smoke-filled environment, but I'm not sure that employment law makes that distinction (i.e. employers need to protect their employees from harm).
One of the key reasons the large pub chains pushed for a full ban, rather than a partial ban, is that they were most at risk of class-action lawsuits from employees... smaller pubs would escape (it's not worth suing the Cat and Ferret when you have Wetherspoons' £££s in your sights) which would have forced the large chains to introduce a 100% smoke-free estate, thereby driving custom to smaller venues.
There's no chance now of succesfully arguing against the prevailing view that second-hand smoke causes harm, so any pub worker with a cough will be able to go after their employers for compensation.
A sensible idea, which should keep everyone happy.
If The Netherlands can relax their smoking ban, why can't we?
The very best of luck! The smoking ban was always iniquitous. Smoking is still legal in this country and the anti-smokers (thought police) who lobbied for the ban would like everything they disapprove of banned.There are still thousands of bars in France and Spain who do not enforce this stupid rule. It is no business of the government (even in the worst of nanny states) to forbid us a legal choice. Give publicans the freedom to do what they like, provided the non-smokers are catered for, and leave the rest of us the choice -and the pubs to survive.
The very best of luck! The smoking ban was always iniquitous. Smoking is still legal in this country and the anti-smokers (thought police) who lobbied for the ban would like everything they disapprove of banned.There are still thousands of bars in France and Spain who do not enforce this stupid rule. It is no business of the government (even in the worst of nanny states) to forbid us a legal choice. Give publicans the freedom to do what they like, provided the non-smokers are catered for, and leave the rest of us the choice -and the pubs to survive.
Breaking News: Smoking is Unhealthy. Thanks to all commenters who pointed this out.
But.
This is nothing to do with health, it's all to do with mean-spiritedness and finger-wagging. It is socially divisive, and bad for the hospitality industry in general and pubs in particular, who are still waiting for all those non-smokers to front up like we wuz promised. Well, they're not going to, so lift the ban in pubs and I and 10s of thousands of others who know that pubs are for grown-ups who enjoy a pint and a smoke and a chat with their pals will come back in a flash. And that's a promise.
Put the choice back to the Pub owner.
Pubs are private property.
Smoking bans walk all over the rights of private property.
Let the market or the publican decide .
After all they are the ones who have had to to police this nonsense.
In so many rural communities the pub is the centre of most social activity - the football club meet - the cricket club meet ( including a few beers afterwards ).
People of all ages but more importantly the elderly and of those - the lonely- could find companoinship on a cold winter's night. The smoke filled atmosphere maybe not too healthy - who knows - but it is certainly preferable to the empty coldness of so many chairs and tables with no people that greets you in many many pubs today.
Let the publican decide !!!
Some hard reading which exposes the myths about passive smoking
http://www.brusselsdeclaration.org/pages/passive_smoking/#_ftn4
What is Brussels Declaration
http://www.brusselsdeclaration.org/pages/brussels_declaration/
http://www.velvetgloveironfist.com/pdfs/PassiveSmoking.pdf
Are Smoking bans necessary
http://www.democracyinstitute.org/Images/PDF/DI_Public_Smoking_Ban_Report.pdf
Select committee on internal affairs 5th Report also states:-
84. The evidence we took on passive smoking leads us to doubt whether government guidelines on risk management have been properly implemented. In particular, the purpose of legislation should have been defined more clearly and greater attention should have been given to available scientific evidence, the relative merits of alternative policy options and the impact of legislation on personal freedom and choice. Failure to consider these matters properly has resulted in the introduction of a policy that appears to demonstrate a disproportionate response to the problem. Lessons learned from the progress of this legislation should be used to ensure that future policy responses are transparent, evidence-based, and proportionate.
This is exactly the type of common sense compromise that pubs and freedom lovers have been crying out for. The smoking ban was grossly disproportionate and in my view was the single worst thing New Labour inflicted upon this country.
I often see an elderly man who is in his eighties (I know this as I once chatted to him) sitting outside a coffee shop with a cigarette. He lives on his own and tries to get out once a day to see people. To be able to sit in the warmth and have a cigarette, and exchange a friendly smile with someone is denied him. What must he think? I get more colds now due to having to smoke in the open, so I imagine this gentleman does, but at more than 25 years my senior, he must suffer more than I do. Genuine caring and kindness comes from tolerance and understanding, not bullying and judging. Unlike many European countries UK citizens are respectful of laws, whereas a ban can exist in say, Spain, but be gently overlooked, so a European wide ban does not mean a total eradication of smoking in public places. Those who feel smokers are lepers have much to learn about themselves. They are not free of habits, and are ignorant of the fact that they are making a rod for their own back. Not much fun for us smokers while they peddle their own baggage so to speak, but I would still rather be me than a know-all, who thinks bullying is the way to health. As if..
www.calmrise.com
Non smokers have absolutely nothing to fear from an easing of the smoking ban. All that is being asked for is for pubs, restaurants and clubs to be given the choice of allowing smoking or not allowing smoking. Thus giving both smokers and non smokers a fair and free choice.
Yes it's time to repeal this New labour nonesense law on smoking.
I have recently been in Spain also EU territory, and 95% of all bars and clubs have smoking in them (both inside and out) so why not the UK.
Please give us smoking pensioners back our Social ability to visit the pub and see our friends.
Good luck & thanks.
Well done David Nuttall and stuff the EU.
In so many rural communities the pub is the centre of most social activity - the football club meet - the cricket club meet ( including a few beers afterwards ).
People of all ages but more importantly the elderly and of those - the lonely- could find companionship on a cold winter's night. The smoke filled atmosphere maybe not too healthy - who knows - but it is certainly preferable to the empty coldness of so many chairs and tables with no people that greets you in many many pubs today.
Let the publican decide !!!
Some common sense at last and for once someone admitting that the smoking ban is the major cause of pubs closing, (apart from the ones asking regulars who smoke to a private room)
The vocal ex smokers and anti smokers have had it all too much their way and not even they can honestly say that an outright ban is fair or democratic, at least I dont recall the populous being asked to vote on thjis or id cards.
Good riddance loony labour and best of luck with this attemopt at a very small concession.
:ots of good sensible comments. Let us just pray that common sense prevails.
I wish Mr Nuttall all the luck in the world with this. As a smoker I haven't been in a pub except on two family occasions -- where I had no real option --, since the smoking ban. It would be wonderful to get a little bit of my old social life back again.
I wish Mr Nuttall all the luck in the world with this. As a smoker I haven't been in a pub except on two family occasions -- where I had no real option --, since the smoking ban. It would be wonderful to get a little bit of my old social life back again.
With the UK still in economic meltdown as we struggle with benefits and immigrations sytems out of a control, plus an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, is this really all Nuttall has to do?
I never could understand why I can sit it a pub, next to a blazing log fire, breathing in all those wood fumes when I can't smoke a pipe.
Must be the wrong sort of smoke I guess.
What about my right not to end up stinking of somebody elses smoke and inhaling their filthy air?
Its great to be in a minority of one, and on a subject which has attracted such a huge response!
Previously as a non smoker I was pushed into a mean corner of most pubs to get a fume and smelly free zone. Now I have a free choice of everywhere.
Pubs are great now- bad news if you are a smoker - dedums you have to forego your nasty fag for 2 hours. Quelle sacrifice - stupid with your health and mean and unsociable with it.
I was opposed to the original ban see my first post - there should have been a maximum 25% of floorspace given to properly vented smoking, with pubs not qualifying if they could not support a minimum or suitable area.
But that was then - and before everyone gets worked up a 10 minute rule bill is going nowhere.
Finally someone with some balls and a bit of common sense. I doubt if it will be successful but fair play for tabling the bill. I am a British citizen living in Ireland and if you think the ban has done damage in the UK you should come have a look at the state of the the pub trade over here. Now that we have such bigger problems facing us with the economy can we please go back to giving people and landlords responsibility to make the rules in their own properties and make their own choices rather than forcing this nanny state propaganda down peoples throats. I am all for the rights of non-smokers and smokers alike, why can't we compromise with an amendment which suits most smokers and a lot of reasonable non-smokers too. There is just no reasoning with the anti-smokers so who cares about them. Best of luck tomorrow!
lets do Wat labour promised and allow landlords to decide then smokers wont have to stand outside i am non smoker of about ten years people need a choice yors jim dyson (oldham)
Good stuff, says this non-smoker of some seven years. I'd happily take up the week again if only to puff smoke in the face of the anti-smoking Puritans.
Make sense and doesn't make smokers feel like pariahs whilst respects non smokers rights
It was always a bad piece of legislation. It was never needed in the first place. Just politicians making work for themselves and nibbling away at freedoms. They should all be spending less time in parliament and more time with their constituents, that is after all their primary business.
From personal experience it would appear that in Spain the landlord decides. Sensible. In the last month I walked into a bar in Denmark and was amazed/delighted to see ashtrays on the bar and the tables. [Sadly, it was the only good thing about Denmark!] Prior to the new law most pubs had smoking and non-smoking areas. LET THE LANDLORDS DECIDE.
Many thanks to you and other Members who are prepared to speak up for a struggling industry, as well as for a large (increasingly downtrodden and alienated) group of citizens.
Finally, we have an MP with a sense of perspective who is actually prepared to take the initiative. I doubt if we are about to see a reversal of the disproportionate, oppressive and authoritarian legislation introduced by labour, but it’s a start.
This spiteful ban has caused social isolation for millions.
Not just smokers. I am a non smoker and my husband smokes. We always used to go out together. He has refused to go to a pub since the ban and consequently I have had to stay home as well.
I would not go out without him as 50 years married is too long to change my ways.
We are both in our late 70's now and could not stand outside in all weathers. We would freeze to death.
I must add my unequivocal support of lifting the ban to the many voices above. The ban had little to do with health and much to do with the spite and nastiness of a small group of zealots prepared to distort, omit and misrepresent the evidence to their own bigoted ends.
As winter approaches and country pubs start the logs blazing in the grates, and as the air fills with nitroxides, benzenes, cyanides and long-chain organic carcinogens in the woodsmoke, the smokers huddled outside are technically breathing purer air; the fervent anti-smoker piously prideful in their bijou North London home in the shadow of the Westway breathes more poison each day in their own home than a month's exposure to smokers in the Dog and Duck in Loamshire.
Let landlords make commercial decisions. We all know the score.
Wallenstein: Could you point me to a case where this has, actually, happened? The only attempts I'm aware of have failed with Judicial comments such as it being impossible to ascribe general statistics in the population to a specific case! Maybe the previous Govt. succeeded in frightening the population into compliance.
This whole thing is unadulterated garbage. Like Fisher, a statistician, I even doubt Doll's efforts. Of course, it took a statistician to shout foul as one medic will rarely contradict another's diagnosis, however weak.
Well done Mr Nuttall. If something isn't done soon a centuries old mainstay of British life will disappear forever. The best of luck bringing about the end of this bit of indefensible New Labour nanny-statism propped up with dubious statistics and misinformation and a return to common sense and tolerance. I look forward to raising a glass to you in a smoky bar somewhere soon.
I wish Mr Nuttall the very best with his sensible Bill. He is a man of true courage and he holds a well reasoned position. A position supported with good quality data. This is however not the way to change political will, rather use poor data to support preposterous positions and introduce smoker/non-smoker apartheid. Who'd have thought that would pass the rigorous scrutiny of our elected house? Mr Nuttall's Bill would potentially reverse the economic, social, intellectual and cultural ruin precipitated by divisive legislation like the smoking ban in the Health Act. Three cheers to the man. If only common sense would prevail. Smokers are being treated like social outcasts. One might expect such behaviour from tyrannical or despot regimes, but a British Parliament..WTF!
Well done David Nuttall. Just a brief perusal of the comments on this blog should be enough to persuade most fair minded MP's that a repeal / amendment to the smoking ban would be a positive step.
I think it is absolutely tragic to have lost so much of our heritage in the form of pub closures. All to appease a small (if vocal) minority of health fascists.
Hello Iain,
Having taken the trouble to post a comment, free from slander and profanity, only to have it censored anyway, I'd very much appreciate some inkling as to why you object to it enough to have censored it.
Tank you,
JB.
Here in Germany the landlord decides the smoking policy in pubs and restaurants. The smoke-averse have their own bars or separate sections, though these are invariably quiet. The atmosphere in the bars is so much better than the sterile, transit rooms that masquerade as pubs post-ban in UK.
Being in a country which still allows choice exposes the absurdity of the blanket ban, and here they mock the capitulation of the infantilised brits.
Pubs, landlords, club-owners: they all deserve to have the liberty of deciding whether they will permit or prohibit smoking. A blanket ban on smoking is an incredibly daft idea.
I want my culture back. Here's a chance to make a start.
Since the smoking ban was introduced I personally haven't gone out socialising as I don't see the point in paying good money to stand outside a door. Lets hope the politicians see some sense. I would really enjoy a good night out with company
May I suggest a possible solution? Why not allow say one pub in each village become a smoking venue with the rest remaining non smoking and then just wait to see which establishment survives, this would be an evolutionary experiment which I am sure would even interest Darwin. This assumes of course that the village still has more than one pub surviving post smoking ban.
Having seen so many pubs disappear in the area I live, I wrote to our MP. He replied that 'few people in the brewing industry believe the smoking ban to be the real problem and blame changing consumer habits and general economic factors'
He finished by saying 'I am prevented by parliamentary protocol from signing EDM's and I am not convinced that a majority of people want to see a relaxation of the present rules'
This is someone who is a member of the All Party 'Save the Pub ' Group in Parliament!
Personally I would like to see a change to allow some relaxation to the draconian rules. Well done Mr Nuttall.
Having seen so many pubs disappear in the area I live, I wrote to our MP. He replied that 'few people in the brewing industry believe the smoking ban to be the real problem and blame changing consumer habits and general economic factors'
He finished by saying 'I am prevented by parliamentary protocol from signing EDM's and I am not convinced that a majority of people want to see a relaxation of the present rules'
This is someone who is a member of the All Party 'Save the Pub ' Group in Parliament!
Personally I would like to see a change to allow some relaxation to the draconian rules. Well done Mr Nuttall.
David Nuttall speaks common sense, and thank you to Iain Dale for providing a public forum on the subject. Like some others here, I voted Conservative at the last election, in the hope of seeing our personal freedoms restored. A repeal of the smoking ban, or an amendment to it, was primary amongst these. Only 25% of Conservative MPs voted for the ban, so my hopes were high, and are renewed by Mr. Nuttall's early day motion.
Not only is the ban an affront to civil liberties, and unnecessary, but the prervious government's own figures showed them what havoc it would wreak in the hospitality industry. Although only approximately 25% of the adult populace smoke, that figure rises to over 50% in terms of the clientele of pubs. The year before the ban, some 400 pubs closed, largely due to the recession. In the year of the ban, that figure rose to about 1500, and then a further 2500 or so the following year! One would have to be in a serious state of denial not to accept the link between the smoking ban and the massive increase in pub closures.
Furthermore, the last figures that I heard quoted (on the BBC) regarding the NHS, around the time of the ban, were that smoking-related diseases cost the NHS £1.3 Billion to treat, but the income from tobacco taxation in the same year was £13 Billion - ten times! Especially in these constrained times, that is an economic equation that makes sense for the public purse.
On the subject of the NHS, that was where the plans for the ban originated. I have read an original strategy document, that was clearly intentional social engineering, with little recourse to the truth. Those of you who have read the Act, and the NHS guidance, will have noted that the government quoted their own passive smoking study, and the US government's study, as supporting evidence for passive smoking causing cancer, but that they just vaguely refer to the only comprehensive study, produced by the World Health Organisation. This is because the latter, which drew on every study performed, concluded that all studies conflict, and there is no proof of passive smoking causing or not causing cancer, even just statistically, one way or the other. In other words, nobody knows!
It is abundantly clear that the previous government introduced the ban because of their own socio-political agenda, in spite of the fact that the evidence did not support them. Thank you to David Nuttall for bringing the issue back onto the agenda where hopefully, common sense, economic realities, and the traditional Conservative ground of civil liberties, will prevail.
David Nuttall speaks common sense, and thank you to Iain Dale for providing a public forum on the subject. Like some others here, I voted Conservative at the last election, in the hope of seeing our personal freedoms restored. A repeal of the smoking ban, or an amendment to it, was primary amongst these. Only 25% of Conservative MPs voted for the ban, so my hopes were high, and are renewed by Mr. Nuttall's early day motion.
Not only is the ban an affront to civil liberties, and unnecessary, but the prervious government's own figures showed them what havoc it would wreak in the hospitality industry. Although only approximately 25% of the adult populace smoke, that figure rises to over 50% in terms of the clientele of pubs. The year before the ban, some 400 pubs closed, largely due to the recession. In the year of the ban, that figure rose to about 1500, and then a further 2500 or so the following year! One would have to be in a serious state of denial not to accept the link between the smoking ban and the massive increase in pub closures.
Furthermore, the last figures that I heard quoted (on the BBC) regarding the NHS, around the time of the ban, were that smoking-related diseases cost the NHS £1.3 Billion to treat, but the income from tobacco taxation in the same year was £13 Billion - ten times! Especially in these constrained times, that is an economic equation that makes sense for the public purse.
On the subject of the NHS, that was where the plans for the ban originated. I have read an original strategy document, that was clearly intentional social engineering, with little recourse to the truth. Those of you who have read the Act, and the NHS guidance, will have noted that the government quoted their own passive smoking study, and the US government's study, as supporting evidence for passive smoking causing cancer, but that they just vaguely refer to the only comprehensive study, produced by the World Health Organisation. This is because the latter, which drew on every study performed, concluded that all studies conflict, and there is no proof of passive smoking causing or not causing cancer, even just statistically, one way or the other. In other words, nobody knows!
It is abundantly clear that the previous government introduced the ban because of their own socio-political agenda, in spite of the fact that the evidence did not support them. Thank you to David Nuttall for bringing the issue back onto the agenda where hopefully, common sense, economic realities, and the traditional Conservative ground of civil liberties, will prevail.
Walk down any high street and see a group of people, huddling together, outside a pub (etc), creating a veritable cloud of smoke - Welcome to visitors to the once Great Britain.
Allow those same people inside, into a warm atmosphere, in their own space and you have happy smokers and a better image for visitors to our country.
As for the staff serving, only allow smokers to serve - or people who are prepared to share what little second hand smoke escapes modern air filters.
The ban on smokers is an affront to Human Rights.
I wish you well David Nuttall - may you start to crack open this ridiculous ruling, ignored by our more intelligent and less sheep-like neighbours in Europe.
A HUGE thank you to David Nuttall for bring forward this bill - a common sense approach is needed for both civil liberties and to economically assist pub landlords to stay in business - a repeal would bring back business
The Smoking Ban is Labour all over: dishonest, divisive, undemocratic social-engineering and delivered through a love-in with Labour's publicly-funded quangocracy.
Every time I see old people outside a British Legion club, I am reminded of the callous authoritarianism that underpins socialist attitudes.
Mr. Nuttall, good luck with this.
I was stunned when Labour actually followed suit with Scotlands left wing government and introduced a nationwide archaic smoking ban without considering the economic effects to pubs, clubs and gaming outlets etc.
I personally have not been into a pub, club or restaurant since the ban was introduced, nor have any of my friends both smokers and none smokers - entertaining at home has become the norm.
If most smoking or pub going Labour voters realised that the Tories would never have introduced a ban like this - they would'nt have voted Labour, but what you hear from Labour voters is "the Tories would have done it to" - nonsense!
It's appalling to see people stood in the street with cigarettes after they have bought a drink etc.
It was typical of Labour and their 13 years in office to introduce such a nasty archaic law without consideration for all involved - I am sure that now we have a rational fair government in power at last - we will see an end if not an amendment to this disgraceful law !
I work in the medical profession and fully understand the dangers of smoking and second hand smoke, but I am also fed up with having personal freedoms curtailed. I have given this matter much thought and although I do not smoke, I cannot see the problem with providing well-ventilated smoking rooms in pubs.
Many of my friends smoke and they no longer visit pubs, consequently, five local pubs near to me have closed. I would now have to drive to get to the nearest pub (pointless)!
The ban has resulted in pub closures, gangs of people hanging around outside pubs and a distinct lack of atmosphere inside pubs.
Let people make their own choices!
Put an end to the Nanny State. Let hard working people run their businesses without interference. Let Landlords create smoking rooms, membership clubs or whatever they feel is needed to get their livelihoods up and running again. AND put an end to elderly people sitting on the doorsteps of their locals or coffee shops or working mens' clubs. These people probably fought for our freedom and look what we have done to them . . .
Put an end to the Nanny State. Let hard working people run their businesses without interference. Let Landlords create smoking rooms, membership clubs or whatever they feel is needed to get their livelihoods up and running again. AND put an end to elderly people sitting on the doorsteps of their locals or coffee shops or working mens' clubs. These people probably fought for our freedom and look what we have done to them . . .
Landlords should have the freedom to choose when it comes to making the decision of whether to allow smoking or not. It's that simple. In a free society there is no other solution.
Thank you Iain and David Nuttall for standing up for freedom.
As a straw poll, that's quite resounding. Gadzooks!
I very much doubt that lifting the smoking ban will help too many pubs.
The price of beer may be one reason why so few people go there. CAMRA say some 57 pubs are closing a month. One landlord points out on their website 'my electricity company are ripping me off for £70 per day, the brewery take £1000 pw, gas; £350pw, business rates are over £350pw, etc, etc,'
Its highly unlikely that any pub which sells food would be able to allow smoking and very very few pubs will stop selling food.
But if your correspondents Mr Dale want to return to something like a Victorian opium den for their entertainment, well maybe we should let them.
BTW I went to the CAMRA beer festival in August and everyone there seemed very happy to eat and drink without the sustenance of a fag.
I fully support David Nuttall and it is finally refreshing to find an MP with not only the common sense to see and acknowledge the harm this divisive legislation has done but who is also man enough to stand up and be counted in terms of doing something positive to try and put right a law that was so dreadfully wrong in the first place.
From my own perspective, being a sufferer of depression, stress and anxiety, it has caused me and many others like me to be isolated and have little or no social life which is one of the worse things possible for sufferers of depression, stress and anxiety. My psychiatrist has said that were it not for the ban I should have been off medication well before now. I had managed my depression without medication prior to the ban or the need for appointments with a psychiatrist, as had many other people who suffered thus on a relatively marginal basis.
I sincerely hope that people like myself, smokers and non smokers, as non smokers suffering from depression have also suffered from lack of socialising due to dwindling numbers in pubs and clubs, can count on much support for the 10-Minute Rule Bill being tabled by David Nuttall.
I fully support David Nuttall and it is finally refreshing to find an MP with not only the common sense to see and acknowledge the harm this divisive legislation has done but who is also man enough to stand up and be counted in terms of doing something positive to try and put right a law that was so dreadfully wrong in the first place.
From my own perspective, being a sufferer of depression, stress and anxiety, it has caused me and many others like me to be isolated and have little or no social life which is one of the worse things possible for sufferers of depression, stress and anxiety. My psychiatrist has said that were it not for the ban I should have been off medication well before now. I had managed my depression without medication prior to the ban or the need for appointments with a psychiatrist, as had many other people who suffered thus on a relatively marginal basis.
I sincerely hope that people like myself, smokers and non smokers, as non smokers suffering from depression have also suffered from lack of socialising due to dwindling numbers in pubs and clubs, can count on much support for the 10-Minute Rule Bill being tabled by David Nuttall.
sedLong before July 2007 my social club had smoking and non smoking rooms, everybody was happy and the club was thriving. Along came the ludicrous smoking ban (dragging is unintended consequences with it) and within a few month members using our club started to wane.
3Years on, commercially the club is in dire straits, nothing to do with the price of beer (Still only £2 per pint) nothing to do with supermarkets (they only get trade because tobacco enthusiasts stay at home to smoke and drink) nothing to do with the economy (the number of members using the club were falling far earlier the when the current economic crisis started)there is only one reason and one reason only THE SMOKING BAN.
David Nuttall is talking common sense, give the landlord/club committee the right to choose to serve their customers as they see fit.
WE DONT NEED GOVERNMENT TO DICTATE OUR CHOICES ONLY TO EDUCATE AND THEN GO AWAY.
Thank you so much for putting forward a Bill to Repeal the dreadful Smoking Ban which has absolutely crippled the Pub trade and taken away our personal freedom. The punters voted with their feet against the unpopular smoking ban and now so many pubs, clubs & bingo halls have sadly closed. We must preserve British traditions, like socializing in pubs and clubs... Decisions about smoking in adult establishments must be turned around to give adults a choice. Publicans should be given back the right to choose what they allow in their establishments! ...and we should be given back the right and freedom to socialize without having to stand outside every five minutes if we want a cigarette. Smoking establishments could display a warning sign at every entrance to prevent any offence to non smokers.
PLEASE give us back our right to smoke in adult establishments now!
LETS HAVE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE IN SOME ADULT ESTABLISHMENTS PLEASE!
Let the Publicans choose what they want to allow in their premises.
I feel sure our government should recognize that there are still millions of folk who smoke. The outright ban has done untold damage to their social lives and has destroyed thousands of venues from bingo halls to pubs hotels and social clubs up and down the land, all because they were denied the right to accommodate smokers. Other country's were able to reach a compromise and our government should look again at this option.
Well done David Nuttall and good luck. A chance to help pubs at no cost to the treasury whatsoever! Now that's an austerity package!
Trevorsden: CAMRA supported the smoking ban so your 'revelation' really isn't surprising. They're starting to become worried though as they are now classed as binge-drinkers (we did warn them). Yes, every one at that festival was officially binge-drinking and would be counted as such in government figures.
The argument against the ban is simple. There is a vast amount of people in this country who would like an alternative (comments here prove that beyond doubt), and the fact that there is not a single pub or club out of around 50,000 which is allowed an exemption is quite stunningly dictatorial.
Unfortunately, Nuttall has little chance of succeeding, but that says a lot about how hideous our politicians have become. A primarily Tory government is now quite happy to prohibit, by law, an owner from allowing people to smoke on his property, even if they have become members and are quite happy with the laughably minimal risks of passive smoking. (and don't talk of staff - there are safe levels of toxins, kept there via extraction and ventilation, in foundry workers and other heavy industrial trades. To equate cig smoke with heavy metals and asbestos etc is quite ludicrous).
It's the most absurd and hysterical law ever produced by Westminster that even the owner himself is criminalised for smoking on his property just in case someone else walks in hours later.
Sadly, that's the state of current politics - a blithe dismissal of sections of the population in favour of an opinion poll-fearful tyranny of the majority.
If they had an ounce of intellect, they'd be advocating smoking and non-smoking pubs, but then the EU would be very unhappy ... now, wouldn't they?
Thank you Mr. Nuttall.
To -Junkie Buster 2.22pm
"As it is, it will take years for clean, well run, smoke free pubs to rebuild the appeal of pubbing among the non-smoking majority who wereby and large driven out of pubs and clubs by landlords permitting unfettered smoking."
Nobody, was ever BANNED from investing their OWN money into smoke-free venues, so you were driven out by NO-ONE.
That is the differance with this spiteful ban.
Loneliness is a killer, how many pipe-smokers do you see just "nipping outside" for a smoke.
I and many others may have thought our pub days were over.
I hope we are wrong.
Thank you Iain for this blog.
mandyv
please not another winter stood outside in the rain and cold ( with the bar staff)
Good luck to David Nuttall. How any Tory can support a piece of legislation that distorts market forces to the point that over 10% of the industry evaporates and 100,000 jobs are lost in just 3 years is beyond me. Especially when it's based on absolute junk science, has had no benefit on health, infringes on private property rights (no, not a right to smoke, the right to choose what you allow or disallow on your private property), was in no manifesto, when poll after poll asserts that more want it repealed or amended than do not and has, as early indicators seem to show, led to an increase in smoking rates (well done Labour and ASH!) then it just has to go. If some kind of restriction were to remain (and personally I'm against it - let the owner of the property decide what is best for his business) then something similar to the Spanish model is proven to provide smokefree environments WITHOUT loss of trade. The law as it stands is preposterous - the fact that a smoking landlord can't employ smoking staff to serve smoking customers in a private club where only informed, consenting members would be exposed to the "deadly" wisps of smoke is absurd beyond belief. Just who is the law protecting in such a circumstance?
"I am introducing a ten minute rule bill inviting non-smokers and asthmatics to go F*** themselves."
Yeah, great, thanks for nothing.
There was a pub with a non-smoking bar. The landlord's wife insisted on going in to it and smoking.
Now, pray tell us... why was a smoking ban introduced?
Or another absurdity - smoking shelters need to be no more than 50% enclosed? Why, when only smokers are in there? What if it was 55% enclosed? Would it suddenly beome a deadly environment where no-one was safe? What about 60%? Or 80%? Or 90%, at which point the smoking shelter is essentially a separate room with a window? What is the problem when only smokers are in there? The whole 50% rule just stinks of vindictiveness and spite. I still have to hear one good argument against wholly separate smoking rooms - indeed, litter, noise complaints and smokers standing at the entrance would no longer exist and anti-smokers could theoretically never have their delicate sensibilities offended by the sight of someone subsidisng the NHS for them again... unless they deliberately walked into it. Which I wouldn't put past them, of course.
I am so angry about the smoking ban Government have no right to ban a Legal, Hugely Taxed, Product.
My business, is exactly that.
If you do not smoke do not come into the Privately Owned Venues that want to stay afloat and cater to the people that do.
No bail out for the people that Own Venues that have gone bust thanks to this interfering, just get to hell out of the way with the petty laws/rules/regulations and let us All get back to work.
The true motivations behind this ban were shown from the start when even the possibility of non-staffed, separately ventilated, comfortable indoor rooms for smokers and their friends were ruled out.
There has never yet been a scientific study showing any harm to people/staff outside of such rooms because not even the wildest and craziest antismoking nutsos can come up with one. Even the loonies pushing the idea of "Thirdhand Smoke" don't try to make a real argument against well-designed smoking rooms: they're simply not allowed because they'd go against the entire ASH social engineering concept of, as NY's Mayor Bloomberg put it "our commitment to make smoking as uncomfortable, inconvenient, and expensive as possible."
Lead the way Britannia!
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
So much for the notion that smokers have accepted - even LIKe - the ban. Give me some pubs to go to where I can have the kind of evening I'm prepared to pay for (ie NOT one where I have to stand ourside in the cold if I want a ciggie)and I will happily put the money I've been spending going abroad for holidays to smoker friendly countries money back into the UK economy.Otherewise - forget it
I don't go anywhere where I can't smoke. What's a point of going to the pub, hanging with friends and have a few drinks, if I can't enjoy in cigarette? And, I would like, very much, to know where were all these non-smokers until now? At their homes? They didn't go to restaurants and clubs? I doubt. I live in Serbia, and here, you can lite a cigarette wherevere you want. Even in officess. Why they don't make "cages" and cabbins for non-smokers, THEY are outnumbered!
I completely support Mr Nuttal's initiative.
The last government came into power in 2005 with a mandate for a partial smoking ban, but instead, cowed by the smug baying masses of the holier-than-thou politically correct, it put in place one of the most draconian anti-smoking regimes on the planet.
I voted Labour for 40 years - never again! I'm sick to death of being regarded as some sort of loathsome pariah, whereas before July '07 I was just an ordinary member of the public.
My view of governments is now permanently altered. We are galloping towards a control-freak society in which being an adult will have lost its meaning.
LET THE LANDLORDS DECIDE.
Good luck on your motion Mr. Nuttall. Its nice to see an MP actually speak sense and reflect public opinion - choice. Instead of the amnesic management-speak babbling of many politicians, particularly from the Labour party.
Since the smoking ban the percentage of people smoking in the UK has remained basically the same around 22%. The actual costs to the NHS are around £2.7bn. Even at very high estimates of the costs to the NHS of £5bn a year attributed to smoking related illnesses, the revenue from tax from tobacco sales is still £10bn per year. Smokers are not a drain on the NHS.
This motion will not force a pub to allow smoking, its about choice and fairness.
You have the right to setup a pub that prohibits smoking.
We should have the right to setup a pub that allows smoking.
We are now the most persecuted minority!
On July 1st 2007, one of the most spiteful and vindictive pieces of legislation crawled its way onto the statute book…the iniquitous smoking ban. If you remember this was a blanket ban that Labour said it would never introduce…in fact they offered us a compromise, which I voted for and so did millions of others, only to find that we would be betrayed in the most callous way.
Do you remember their promise to us in return for our votes? Let me remind you.
LABOUR MANIFESTO PLEDGE 2005
‘all pubs and bars preparing and serving food will be smoke-free; and other pubs and bars will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free. In membership clubs the members will be free to choose whether to allow smoking or to be smoke-free’.
Speaks for itself – doesn’t it?
Of course the reality as we all know is completely different.
Little did we know that the smoking ban would bring an unbridled persecution and pariah status for anyone who dared to enjoy a legal product – tobacco!
Social culture would be devastated; thousands of businesses in the hospitality industry would be wiped out causing mass unemployment, and millions of long lasting friendships would be desecrated at a stroke. This nasty legislation has driven a poisonous wedge between decent honourable people…setting friend against friend, creating anger and distrust where none before existed. What right has any politician got in telling me or any other smoker that we can’t go down to our local pub and enjoy a smoke with our pint…that is the domain of the landlord or landlady…not some reprehensible and duplicitous half-wit politician.
One organisation that has done more than any other to bring about this intrusive social engineering is the self righteous ASH! Supposedly a charity, they have brought themselves into disrepute by becoming a professional political lobby group, and influencing politicians (which isn’t difficult) with regard to tobacco control – that is not their remit and never was. They also lie…saying that SHS (second hand smoke) kills, when neither they nor anyone else can present post-mortem evidence to validate this ludicrous claim.
It is now time for the parasites at ASH to fund their own propaganda, and not the already beleaguered taxpayer. Withdraw their funding NOW!
Iain, One of your unamed contributors used the term "deadly", I assume she/he/it is speaking of nicotine? If so, it's an odd comment considering the vast majority of smokers die of the same "disease" as non-smokers: old-age and, many others die of non-related conditions.
As to the rubbish postulated about risks of second-hand smoke, this is truly fatuous. It's an issue of a smell that many people don't like - I respect that. Separate spaces for smokers and non-smokers is a no-brianer - unless, of course, your objective is, shall we say, otherwise...?
I support this position taken by David Nuttall. Although I'm a smoker, I've supported non-smokers' rights throughout my life. All I'd like in return is a similar level of consideration.
I'd also suggest David Nuttall calls for smoking booths past security in UK airports as they have in Zurich and Frankfurt.
I don't want to smoke everywhere - never have. I just want to be able to smoke somewhere...
Charles Matthews
Mainz, Germany
Im glad that someone is finally standing up for us smokers. Everyone sees the smoking ban as being a flat out ban on smoking in any public places, but if you actually dip into the regulation this isnt the case. Why still have smoking rooms in some european countries and hotels if thats true? :)
Anyway, im in favour of giving the pub or club owner the choice to decide whether he/she wishes to allow smoking or not. In this world where we stand so strongly alongside democracy, it should be only fair to give smokers as much rights as non smokers.
Im not saying that we should allow smoking while we are eating, even i find that horrible, but give people the choice to decide where they want to go, based on whether they can smoke there or not, is only fair for everyone.
I do wish the 10 minute Bill all the best. It's about time we had a return to common sense and conviviality and returned the British pub to the heart of the community. British culture is one inclusivity and it pains me to see such apartheid like laws in the country that I love.
All the other EU couontries seems to have 'compromised' with areas for smokers and non smokers - the outright ban is just not working - it is ruining businesses. Even non smokers are cojmplaining now that their pubs are going into decline due to the smoking ban - in fact the pub where I go to, the NON-SMOKERS stand OUTSIDE with the smokers - how ridiculous is that!!!
Good luck with the bill. There's no reason why a reasonable compromise can't be reached. It works in other EU countries so why not here? Landlords ought to be able to decide for themselves.
Non-smokers will not be affected by separate rooms with proper ventilation and it would certainly help reverse the stuggling fortunes of Britain's pubs.
With so many closing every week a part of the British way of life and social hub for communities is at risk of dying out. This bill would be good for smokers and non-smokers alike who enjoy visiting their local.
Recently retired Professor Philippe Even, world renowned pulmonologist and president of the prestigious Necker Research Institute for the last decade, comments in 'Le Parisien' in May 2010;
On passive smoking studies;
“Clearly, the harm [of SHS] is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low”
On The 2002 IARC report on passive smoking;
“ It was creating a fear that is based on nothing
… I do not think it is good to legislate on a lie.”
When asked why he was speaking out now, he replied;
"As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held to confidentiality. If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man."
One of the largest studies into passive smoking commissioned by anti-tobacco (WHO European study-Boffetta et al) found only ONE statistically significant result -
THAT PASSIVE SMOKE IS BENEFICIAL TO CHILDREN.
Results from the study showed neither harm nor benefit to non-smoking adults BUT, exposed children are LESS likely to suffer from serious diseases later in life!
Are there any more ethical / honest doctors or scientists out there who have the courage to speak out for truth in medical science ?
Even as a smoker I'm not asking for a repeal of the ban, just a logical one. Amongst other spurious claims by Labour were that ventilation systems would have to have the power of a jet engine! Utter rubish, as anyone who has been to most of Europe will know, it's perfectly feasible. Likewise, two smokers sharing a company vehicle are not allowed to smoke, because they would breathe in the second hand smoke of each other? This was an act of nasty, irrational vindictiveness by Hewitt and the Nanny State and has no basis on risk, is illogical and was designed to make smokers suffer for the sake of it. Please, let's follow France, where smoking rooms are allowed or Germany, where smaoking and non-smoking areas in bars work perfectly well - to the satisfaction of all voters!
A very good speech, David. I am saddened that the Proposal did not get enough Ayes this time but consoled by the fact that there are at least 80 odd MPs who have got some business/common sense. What we need now is a real push by some peaceful demonstrations and constituents contacting those MPs who voted against the proposal. How do we do this please? Any ideas anyone?
Good luck Mr Nuttall in your pursuit of freedom of choice, an issue wider than the sledgehammer, blanket ban on public smoking which has particularly devastated this country's ancient and fine pub tradition.
Normally a non-voter, I'll vote for any party proposing to repeal or modify this Orwellian legislation.
Good luck Mr Nuttall in your brave attempt to repeal or modify this Orwellian legislation.
Normally a non-voter, I'll vote for any party proposing change to the ban which has affected both my social life and my health (from standing outside pubs in freezing weather clutching my expensive and heavily taxed beer and smoking my legal and heavily taxed tobacco).
Good Luck, as a life long smoker I'm now an exsmoker. The Health act was draconian beyond belief and now it is time to amend a bad law.
Whilst I agree that the smoking ban is harming Pubs & Clubs little seems to said about secondary job loss. The Cabbies I meet regularly complain the ban hit thier trade and it's probably the same for local chipies and curry houses.
Finally, I don't think cheap beer is a cause for the pubs loss of trade but a consequence. Many people will stay at home and drink thier own beer, the scramble to gain means copetition. Still it might go some way to compensating the brewing industry from the loss of trade in the pubs and clubs.
A good turn out for common-sense for a back-bencher's motion so let's hope it's not too late for the 88 Ayes to back Brian Binley's EDM 406 (or a new one).
We've heard Kevin Barron's 10 minutes of text-book exaggeration, lies and propaganda which are a credit to Hans Christian Anderson and so blatantly biased with no basis in fact - time for a reality check.
A good turn out for common-sense for a back-bencher's motion so let's hope it's not too late for the 88 Ayes to back Brian Binley's EDM 406 (or a new one).
We've heard Kevin Barron's 10 minutes of text-book exaggeration, lies and propaganda, (a credit to Hans Christian Anderson) - blatant bias with no basis in fact - time for a reality check.
If I were one of the people in Kevin Barron's constituency who had lost their pub or a job in a pub or just a local resident who disagreed with the smoking ban then I would be standing outside his offices with a placard saying it's time he went as he doesn't live on this planet! I saw his speech and I was flabbergasted. He suggests that British technology is so bad that they don't make decent extractors! How can these people get into the House of Commons?
A little late but all good luck and best wishes to MP Nuttall.
Since the smoking ban,I have started brewing my own beer. Just a small but an active protest.Better than just moaning about it whilst stood outside a pub in all weathers.
Also as I can now entertain my friends with free beer and cigarettes. Reult their revenue is also being lost to the Governmentin tax revenues.
mage.
P.S. Growing tobacco is as easy as growing cabbage.Brewing beer is as easy as making tea, just needs more time in the pot.
Result Beer approx 30p a pint,Cigs a few pence for papers and filters.
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