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Health Bill

My Lords, I have in my documentation—I shall not go into it in detail—evidence to show that research that is being undertaken in London has demonstrated that anyone in a London cab, who may be exposed to smoking as the cab is stopped in a traffic jam, is exposed to a significant number of particles of smoke. Even walking past someone who is smoking in the road exposes one to a minimal amount of exposure to particles. But no one can argue that that kind of exposure is harmful. However, while I would support, without any reservation whatever, the right of any individual to smoke as much as he wishes when alone and not in the proximity of any other persons, I do not believe that we have the right to smoke in the presence of other people in any kind of enclosed space, such as a restaurant, a pub or a private club, and to impose that health risk on other individuals, not least the staff. There are 20,000 licensed members clubs in England, covering a wide range of interests from sport and recreational clubs to political and working men’s clubs. Exemptions for private members’ clubs would be unworkable and unjust for all the same reasons as exemptions for pubs. Once the health and safety case and public health benefits are accepted, it is not possible to allow an effective compromise for private members’ clubs as the staff of those clubs must be protected. In Grand Committee I said that I had carried out a very limited range of inquiries. I had inquired about the feelings of the staff in two London clubs—namely, the Athenaeum and the Oxford and Cambridge Club. They said that unequivocally they would wish to see those clubs smoke free. I also inquired at two golf clubs, one of which is my own golf club in north Northumberland, Bamburgh Castle Golf Club, which the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, knows very well. It has a large bar where food, including sandwiches, is served, and a dining room which, at the moment, is smoke free as smoking is banned there. There is no other room in which anyone can smoke and there is no way in which the bar can be divided without doing irreparable damage to it. A very large number of other clubs are in exactly the same situation. It is unacceptable that members of clubs should have the right to vote to damage the health of members of their staff. Children are often present in such clubs and are at particular risk from second-hand smoke. Many private clubs are, in effect, bars competing with pubs in their local areas. Exempting them from smoke-free legislation would also create unfair competition and was strongly opposed by the pub and hospitality trade as well as by the health lobby when the Bill was debated in the Commons. I believe that we owe it to the staff of private members’ clubs throughout England to stand by the clause that the Commons debated and included in the Bill and to reject the amendment.