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Health Bill

My Lords, my amendment to leave out Clause 5 has been grouped with the noble Earl’s amendment. I, of course, agree with everything that he said. The clause should be left out completely because it will be virtually impossible to enforce even if people know what is supposed to be enforced, which will be very difficult when one reads this clause. There was a lengthy and somewhat amusing debate, at times, on the clause in the Grand Committee. The clause enables Ministers to introduce regulations making vehicles smoke free, which they intend to do. I do not wish to steal the Minister’s thunder but perhaps I can précis what the Minister said about the regulations that the Government intend to make—that is, that business vehicles will be smoke free, thus providing, it is claimed, consistency with the smoke-free provisions that apply to enclosed and substantially enclosed places But, as the Minister said, the vast majority of public transport is already smoke free. Therefore one could ask why this legislation is necessary. The Minister also said that it is his intention that private vehicles will be exempted, including rental vehicles, it being a matter for passengers in those cars to decide whether they want to travel with someone who is smoking. But, as we have already heard from the noble Earl, it will be very difficult to define that. I simply do not know how it is going to be defined, let alone enforced. This is a very sweeping clause. It permits regulations making any vehicle smoke free. Ministers’ current intentions may be to confine regulations to vehicles used for business, but those intentions and regulations could change at any time—that is the whole problem—and of course we are very restricted and constricted when matters are put before us by order. What seem to be the present intentions in detail? Where a car is used by only that person for work, it will not be smoke free, according to the Minister. However, vehicles used as a place of work or business vehicles will be smoke free unless the vehicle is only ever used and owned by one person. I do not know whether I have got that right. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that. We have been told that a shared vehicle would have to be smoke-free at all times. The Minister cites in support of his proposal that the Road Haulage Association has advised that most of its member companies already have smoking policies that prohibit smoking in shared vehicles. The job is apparently already being done, so why is it necessary to lay it down in this sort of legislation? Your Lordships may be confused by that explanation of the Government’s intentions and it may pose questions, as it did in Grand Committee. When is a vehicle enclosed or substantially enclosed? What is the precise position of a privately owned vehicle that the owner sometimes uses for business purposes when he may carry passengers? I could go on, but the Minister will probably tell me to await the regulations that will provide the details. As I have already said, that is not good enough. These matters should be in the Bill because they are so important. I will not refer again to the report of the Economic Affairs Committee as we debated its findings earlier today. But that committee said that the failure to consider these matters in this and other parts of the Bill had resulted in the introduction of a policy that appears to demonstrate a disproportionate response to the problem. I entirely agree with that. I have made inquiries of all the major databases on this topic and I have not found one single piece of research on the health risks of second-hand smoke in vehicles. I should be grateful if the Minister could point me to any evidence that he has that I have not been able to find. I have a feeling that the Minister’s response will be to claim that components of second-hand smoke continue to linger in the air long after smoking has taken place. Well that could be said about anything. It could be said about vehicle fumes, for example, which, as we have heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, cause 20,000 deaths every year. We must take this matter very seriously and try to find out just what is going to happen. The claim that exposure to second-hand smoke in a vehicle represents a serious risk to the non-smoker is implausible. It is not proven. There is no scientific evidence that there is a risk and it appears that no one has bothered to waste time undertaking an obviously pointless exercise. It is pointless, because if one is travelling in a vehicle, one is inevitably travelling behind some other vehicle and the emissions from that vehicle will be far more dangerous—probably 100 times more so—than the cigarette being smoked. Clause 5 is illogical. If the evidence is absent then the Government’s own risk policy guidelines are not fulfilled. It follows that Clause 5 offends another of the Government’s guidelines, which is proportionality. What concerns me here, and what concerned me in Grand Committee, is enforcement. How on earth will this be enforced? We never got a proper answer to that question. We understand that the enforcement authorities will be the local authorities. Where on earth will they get the qualified staff to enforce this on thousands of miles of motorway, ordinary roads, and country lanes? With 35 million vehicles, how on earth will they do it? The fact is that they cannot. That is something they dream of; they think that it will be self-enforcing. Well, it will not be self-enforcing. We have a ban on using mobile telephones in cars and other vehicles, yet you hardly ever see a car or lorry without the driver using a mobile phone.