UK: Tony Blair paves way for extended ban on smoking in U.K.

U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair said his Labour Party lawmakers are free to vote as they wish on legislation to restrict smoking, paving the way for a ban in all offices, restaurants, pubs and clubs by 2007, Bloomberg posted on January 11.

The move heads off a revolt by a fifth of Labour lawmakers who objected to exemptions proposed by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt that would allow smoking in private members' clubs and pubs that don't serve food.

Hewitt herself had backed a full ban in all offices, pubs and clubs, before being forced in October by her predecessor as Health Secretary, Defence Secretary John Reid, to allow exemptions that Labour had promised in the May 2005 general election. In a parliamentary petition, 70 Labour lawmakers had called for a free vote, enough to defeat Blair in the House of Commons if they had rebelled against his party line. “We recognize that the public debate has moved on,'' Blair's spokesman Tom Kelly told reporters. ``It's sensible to listen.''

Lawmakers are normally expected to vote as their party tells them. Kelly said all party members, including government ministers, would be free to vote as they wished when the legislation comes before them in February. He did not give a precise date, and refused to say how Blair would vote.

A parliamentary committee on human rights earlier today said exemptions to the ban may discriminate against poor people. Andrew Dinsmore, the committee's chairman, wrote to Hewitt asking her to spell out the legal justification she used in drawing up the legislation.

`Discriminatory'

“This may be indirectly discriminatory on the basis of lack of wealth or social condition,'' Dinsmore wrote. ``The evidence suggests that both pubs not serving food and membership clubs tend to be in the most deprived areas.''

U.K. pub owners including Mitchells & Butlers Plc and Punch Taverns Plc have criticized the proposed exemptions, saying they would disadvantage their businesses compared to private clubs.

In December, lawmakers on the all-party Health Committee said the plan would be ``unworkable.'' Committee Chairman Kevin Barron and nine other members of the panel yesterday proposed an amendment that if approved would ban smoking in all pubs and clubs.

The original proposals, introduced in the House of Commons in October, called for a smoking ban in offices, restaurants and most pubs from mid-2007. The main opposition Conservative Party has said it will give its members a free vote. Some support the ban on health grounds, while others oppose it on civil liberties grounds.

Northern Ireland, Scotland

In the U.K., Northern Ireland and Scotland have announced complete bans on smoking, and the Welsh assembly will be given powers to choose a similar move under the legislation. Norway, Finland, Sweden and Italy have restricted smoking in recent years.

The British Beer & Pub Association, which represents companies including Enterprise Inns Plc, Punch Taverns Plc and Mitchells & Butlers Plc, said the industry is moving toward smoke-free pubs by 2009, although it wanted to maintain separate rooms where customers can smoke if they want. It estimates a fifth of pubs will stop serving food if the proposed ban is implemented.

Good Manners and Signs

Cigarette makers including Imperial Tobacco Ltd. and Gallaher Group Plc have said pubs should have a choice about whether to allow smoking, arguing that research linking second- hand smoke to cancer is inconclusive. They say good manners and signs warning that a pub allows smoking are better answers than legislation.

The tobacco industry has shed 2,500 jobs since Blair took office in 1997 as companies closed cigarette factories in English cities including Manchester and Darlington.

At least 114,000 people in the U.K. die each year from smoking-related illnesses, accounting for a fifth of all deaths, and Blair's government estimates restrictions could save up to 3.8 billion pounds ($7 billion) by reducing sickness and death associated with smoking.

About 26 percent of British women smoke, the second-highest rate in the Group of Seven industrial nations behind Germany. Among men, 28 percent smoke in the U.K., trailing Germany, Italy, France and Japan in the G-7. About a fifth of the U.S. population smokes. About 70 percent of smokers in the U.K. say in surveys that they'd like to quit, the British Heart Foundation says.

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