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Health Bill

I have thrown away my speech and will aim to speak for less than five minutes. We need to focus on one point. It is accepted that secondary smoke is dangerous. Workers need to be protected from that, so a comprehensive ban is necessary. However, we also accept that workers will be exposed to some secondary smoke, when they go outside pubs to collect the glasses. Amendment No. 10 is a probing amendment to see whether the Government wish to consider whether it is possible to license, through local authorities, rooms—I accept that it is not possible to ventilate a whole pub—that could be ventilated to keep the level of secondary smoke below that outside the pub. Apart from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), we accept that people will smoke outside pubs, in the gardens. The question is whether it is possible to bring the level of secondary smoke in a room in the pub below the level found outside. Unintended consequences will arise from a comprehensive ban. The evidence from Ireland is that the consumption of tobacco fell by some 5 per cent. as a result of the ban. The actual fall was some 9 or 10 per cent. but the trend is downwards anyway. However, smoking is still going on somewhere. By introducing the ban we will move people around, but we will mostly not stop people smoking. If we could achieve a situation in which the concentration of secondary smoke in the atmosphere is below a certain level under certain circumstances—as we accept it will be outside the pub—why not allow smoking rooms, on a licensed basis, within the pub?