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Liverpool City Council (Prohibition of Smoking in Places of Work) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the city of Liverpool and the London local authorities on their initiative. It is excellent that Liverpool plans to be smoke-free by 2008, when it will be the European City of Culture. What a splendid initiative. It gives a totally new dimension to the meaning of culture. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulkner on introducing the Bill, and I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams: what could be more appropriate in preparing for the Olympic Games than this move to prohibit smoking in places of work? I hope that my noble friend the Minister will recognise the Bills as examples of civic pride and urban ambition to make these cities better places. Who would want to stand in the way of that? I would have thought that the Government would have welcomed the initiatives from London and Liverpool. Letting them make their own decisions should be seen as smart localism, not as causing confusion up and down the country, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Naseby. Other noble Lords have spoken of priorities. Should the priority be public health or individual freedom or avoiding economic damage? Let me briefly comment on each of the priorities. Starting with individual freedom, libertarians rightly make much of the freedom of individuals to choose for   themselves. Indeed, the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association has helped the libertarians. It has published polling data which show that the majority of people do not want a complete ban on smoking in public places. Of course, we have to pay due regard to the will of people, but there are other considerations, many of which we have heard this evening. Governments and councils cannot live by polling alone. Public health and the economy are other considerations. On public health, the noble Lord, Lord Chan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, have explained how passive smoking is damaging to health. That is why I agree with my noble friend Lady Gould. The idea of smoking being permitted where food is not served because smoke is unpleasant to diners is illogical. If in other places of work one relaxes safety procedures according to the perceived pleasantness or unpleasantness and not according to the actual danger to health, there would be uproar and endless argument. Quite rightly, no workplace would put up with that. I turn to the question of economic damage. Fortunately the Government do not have to rely on the inevitably conflicting opinions of economists. They have the benefit of actual experience elsewhere. Other cities and countries have banned smoking in public places and, in some of those countries, sufficient time has elapsed for us to judge the economic effect. Other noble Lords have given details of what has happened in America, Ireland and elsewhere, and I do not intend to repeat that. However, it is interesting that, generally, in all those places the law is respected, as it is on trains and buses here. I do not believe that there need be much concern about economics. On balance, where should the decision lie? Like other noble Lords, I think it should be in public health. We have to make public health our priority. If the Minister has any doubts about putting health first, perhaps I may pray in aid the moving article in last Sunday’s Observer by her colleague in government, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He writes about his friend Deborah Hutton and her book on cancer. The passage about Deborah Hutton’s campaign to stop young people smoking, particularly girls, would convince anyone to support the Bill. That is why I support the Bills and hope that they will go forward to an opposed committee stage.