Health Bill

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Standing Committee E

Tuesday 6 December 2005

(Afternoon)

The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairmen: †Mr. Eric Illsley, Mr. Martin Caton, Ann Winterton

†Blunt, Mr. Crispin (Reigate) (Con)

†Butler, Ms Dawn (Brent, South) (Lab)

†Dorries, Mrs. Nadine (Mid-Bedfordshire) (Con)

†Engel, Natascha (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab)

†Ennis, Jeff (Barnsley, East and Mexborough) (Lab)

†Flint, Caroline (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health)

†Hodgson, Mrs. Sharon (Gateshead, East and Washington, West) (Lab)

†Joyce, Mr. Eric (Falkirk) (Lab)

†Kennedy, Jane (Minister of State, Department of Health)

†Kidney, Mr. David (Stafford) (Lab)

†Lansley, Mr. Andrew (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)

†Merron, Gillian (Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury)

†Murrison, Dr. Andrew (Westbury) (Con)

†Reed, Mr. Jamie (Copeland) (Lab)

†Webb, Steve (Northavon) (LD)

†Williams, Stephen (Bristol, West) (LD)

†Young, Sir George (North-West Hampshire) (Con)

John Benger, Gordon Clarke, Committee Clerks

†attended the Committee

[Mr. Eric Illsley in the Chair]

Health Bill

Clause 2

Smoke-free premises

3.55 pm

Dr. Andrew Murrison (Westbury) (Con): I beg to move amendment No. 66, in clause 2, page 2, line 26, leave out subsection (8).

I will not detain the Committee for long. This is a probing amendment, which would remove voluntary work from the clause. I have proposed it because I am concerned about people doing voluntary work in, for example, a village hall. We have heard a lot about village halls in the past few months in connection with the Licensing Act, and they are close to my heart.

I am thinking about the volunteer participating in a village fete who is smoking, believing himself not to be in a workplace, in his own time, and who is thus exposing those around him to what one might call a trivial level of tobacco smoke. I do not believe that it is the Minister's intention to criminalise that kind of activity. I would also point out that those who have gainful employment are one thing, but volunteers are in a different league.

I do not want to belittle the valuable contribution that volunteers make to our society—quite the reverse. Nevertheless, they have a degree of control over what they do that those whose livelihoods depend on what they are doing arguably do not. Therefore, I consider that the two classes of activity fall into different categories, yet the Bill lumps them together. I should be grateful for the Minister's reflection on that. Although I do not intend to press the point, it would be helpful if the Minister would agree that the two categories are different and should be dealt with differently.

Stephen Williams (Bristol, West) (LD): I am pleased that the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) said that this was a probing amendment, because we were puzzled about the intention behind it. There are many circumstances in which voluntary workers come into contact with the public—I am thinking of the charity shops that operate all over my constituency, and no doubt in those of all other hon. Members. I recently opened the Christmas card charity shop in my constituency. That is run entirely by volunteers in a church hall. If this amendment were to be agreed, I assume that it would be acceptable for the volunteers there to smoke, although they are in contact with the public in an entirely enclosed space. Charity concerts and fund-raising events would also be covered by the exemption if the amendment were accepted.

Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) mentioned his oboe lessons. If he were
 
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giving an oboe recital—I do not know whether he is still capable of such things—

Mr. Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): I do not want the hon. Gentleman to proceed on an erroneous assumption. Although the amendment would remove voluntary work from the definition of work, the situations in his illustrations would not be exempt, because they involve events or premises that are open to the public. They would still be required to be smoke-free because they are open to the public.

Stephen Williams: I am grateful for that clarification, and I shall not pursue my hon. Friend and his oboe. Let me give another example, on which it would be interesting to hear the Minister's clarification of the Government's position. Another event that I attended recently was the opening of what is to be the homeless hostel in the centre of Bristol. Homeless people will be able to spend Christmas and the period up to the new year there. That is run entirely by volunteers, but most of the people in the hostel will want to smoke. It is in an enclosed space, and it is run by volunteers. When the Government included voluntary work in the definition of work, did they think through—

Mr. Lansley: The hon. Gentleman is moving to another example; although the amendment would not itself exclude such a hostel, such hostels are likely to be excluded by virtue of the exemptions in clause 3(2)(a), as they are places where people have their home, albeit temporarily.

Stephen Williams: The hon. Gentleman will have heard me ask the Minister to say whether, when the Government included voluntary work in the definition, they had considered all aspects of voluntary work. By the very nature of their work, volunteers come into contact with people who habitually smoke. Running a homeless hostel would seem to be a good example. I would be interested to hear the Minister's view on how people running such hostels would be affected by the Bill.

Mr. David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): A question arises as a result of this short debate about where volunteers work. Stafford, like many places, has a council for voluntary services, and volunteers and workers paid by voluntary organisations work together. I would expect the Bill to make those premises smoke-free for the benefit of all who work there, including the volunteers.

This morning's example of the plumber working in someone's bathroom makes me think of all the volunteers who go to people's homes—for instance, those from Home-Start and Age Concern, which provide house-sitting services. I would expect those homes not to be considered places of work; otherwise everyone's home would become an obligatory smoke-free area. That is a different point from the one raised by the amendment, but it is nevertheless important.

Mr. Lansley: I think the hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. We are all familiar with political party work. During the last election for the county council division of Melbourn, which happily, we won from the Liberal Democrats, my party had its committee rooms in my house. Did it become a place
 
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of work under the Bill while people were working there voluntarily? We are trying to find where the boundary lies between work space and private space, and I would cite the elephant test: we look at it, and we know what it is. In this case, the test is whether people are working. Work is often defined by the fact that people are paid, but not always. Trying to discover whether something is an elephant will sometimes be extremely difficult.

Mr. Kidney: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I would not expect the Bill to create smoke-free zones in every home simply because volunteers might sometimes work there. Perhaps the Minister can assure us about that.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Caroline Flint): We have had an interesting discussion. The Bill clearly covers public places. We would expect some of the places mentioned in the examples—village halls and so forth—to be smoke free because they are places where the public go, perhaps when gathering to prepare for the Christmas fete.

Clause 2(8) includes a specific reference to voluntary work because we want to ensure that workplaces in which volunteers are part and parcel of an organisation's work force are not exempted simply because voluntary workers are present. A good example might be a charity that asks volunteers to come in once a week to stuff envelopes; we would not want such a workplace to have different rules for the volunteers.

As I said before, the Bill will make a substantial number of workplaces and public spaces and buildings smoke-free for the first time. I hope that I have explained why we reject the amendment. It would differentiate between volunteer workers and paid workers in one workplace, and that is not right.

As for the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) and the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), we are clearly not in the business to make smoking in people's homes illegal.

On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, we should reflect the fact that an individual's private space—for example, in a homeless hostel that serves as a place of residence for individuals—may be recognised in the exemptions. We are discussing how we recognise permanent or temporary residence in relation to such institutions, as well as mental health institutions, prisons and so forth. At the same time, we recognise that even in a homeless hostel, the communal areas could still be smoke-free and should be covered by our proposals.

For those reasons, I hope that the Committee will not accept the amendment and I ask the hon. Member for Westbury to withdraw it.

Dr. Murrison: This has been a fruitful line of discussion, as we seek to tease out what is public and private and what constitutes trivial as opposed to habitual exposure to tobacco smoke. However, I would see volunteering as different from one's occupation, and I am sure that on reflection, the
 
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Minister would agree. Nevertheless, given her words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

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Prepared 6 December 2005