Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the speech of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. Obstructions on the pavement are an issue not just for those with a visual impairment but for a wide variety of other users of the pavement. He rightly calls for a better balance between the needs of business on the one hand and the needs of pedestrians on the other, and he deserves a sympathetic response from the Minister.

Amendment 258, in my name and that of the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, would introduce the requirement for all pavement licences to be smoke-free and so to contribute to the Government’s worthy ambition to make England smoke-free by 2030—an ambition we are currently on track to miss by nine years, according to Cancer Research UK. The House has previously expressed strong support for such a measure. Under the current pavement licensing rules, councils have two options on pavement smoking: to implement the national condition to make reasonable provision for seating where smoking is not permitted, or to go further and make 100% smoke-free seating a condition of licences at local level.

I have previously welcomed the current requirement, secured only after pressure from Members in both Houses who objected to the original proposal, which had no provision for non-smokers. But, although where we are is better than what the Government originally proposed, it does not go far enough.

When this amendment was debated in Committee, my noble friend Lord Howe defended the current arrangement, stating that

“it is important to allow local areas to make the decisions that are right for them”.—[Official Report, 22/5/23; col. 661.]

I note in passing that, when I asked for that flexibility this morning on planning fees, my noble friend robustly rejected it. Although I understand the principle behind this position, in practice it places a significant burden on councils, which must provide reasonable justification for introducing a smoke-free condition on a case-by-case basis.

This is the point made by local councillors from the London Tobacco Alliance, who this week have written to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, calling on the Government to introduce a national 100% smoke-free pavement licence condition. This would reduce the amount of bureaucracy faced by councils and help to protect non-smokers, especially children and of course those who work in the hospitality industry, from toxic tobacco smoke.

This amendment is also supported by the Local Government Association, the cross-party national membership body for local authorities, which has said that 100% smoke-free pavement licensing

“sets a level playing field for hospitality venues across the country and has a public health benefit of protecting people from unwanted second-hand smoke … If smoking is not prohibited, pavement areas will not become family-friendly spaces”.

Under the current system, implementation of smoke-free conditions is highly inconsistent across the country, meaning that non-smokers, children and hospitality staff will continue to be exposed to second-hand smoke. That is why Dr Javed Khan OBE’s independent review of Smokefree 2030 policies, commissioned by DHSC and published last year, recommended that smoking be prohibited on all premises, indoors and out, where food or drink is served, as well as a ban on smoking in all outdoor areas where children are present.

This recommendation has strong public support, with two-thirds of the public polled in 2022 saying they wanted smoking banned in the outdoor seating areas of all restaurants, pubs and cafés. Fewer than one in five opposed a ban. This was a large sample of more than 10,000 people, carried out by YouGov for Action on Smoking and Health. Some councils are doing what the public want, with 10 councils in England introducing 100% smoke-free requirements. The experience of these councils shows that smoke-free seating has proved popular with the public, leading to high levels of compliance, and has not been shown to cause a decrease in revenue.

When South Tyneside Council surveyed opinion on 100% smoke-free seating among local café proprietors, it did not receive a single objection. A number of proprietors were very supportive of the more consistent approach, which is easier to comply with and requires little or no enforcement. The director of public health in South Tyneside said:

“Creating and supporting smokefree environments benefits individuals, the wider community and businesses—supporting those trying to quit the habit, promoting positive role modelling for children and young people, and reducing the harm from second-hand smoke”.


This amendment is an opportunity to implement Dr Khan’s recommendations and take a small but important step forward towards a smoke-free 2030. I hope that my noble friend, who took a keen interest in preventative medicine when he was a Health Minister, feels able to support this modest but popular amendment. If, by any chance, the dreaded word “resist” is at the top of his folder, can he say whether primary legislation is required if, in the future, the House wants to revisit this issue if we do not achieve this progressive measure this evening?

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

I express support from these Benches for the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, which he put very cogently. Pavement licences were introduced in the pandemic but have become a feature of our high streets, so we must make sure that approaches are inclusive, addressing the needs of those with disabilities or those, for example, with children in pushchairs.

I put my name to Amendment 258 and I am pleased to be speaking in support of it. It is led by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who made the usual very strong case. It is disappointing to see that the Government have not taken the opportunity presented by the Bill to make all pavement licences smoke-free, as recommended—as we have just heard—in last year’s Khan review of tobacco policies. This is despite the clear majority of adults in England supporting a smoking ban in outdoor seating areas of restaurants, pubs and cafés. In areas such as Manchester, where 100% smoke-free pavement licences have been implemented, they have had great success and have been very popular among businesses and those using these facilities.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of Amendment 459, led by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, to which I have attached my name. As noble Lords will know, this amendment has strong cross-party support, and countering smoking has long had cross-party support in this House. The amendment seeks to ensure that all pavement licences are smoke free. I hear what noble Lords have said about such licences, and this amendment would apply if a pavement licence is granted. It seeks to ensure that the rules inside a bar, restaurant or café apply equally to their outdoor area.

These outdoor areas were expanded in the pandemic so that there was more space between people; outdoors thus became an extension of indoors. The same smoke-free rules that apply inside should apply outside, for exactly the same reasons. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, pointed out, the Local Government Association agrees. That makes these areas more family friendly, and I point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that the LGA argues that it makes it easier to implement if this is applied nationally.

The Government have had several opportunities to make pavement licences 100% smoke free over the last three years and have opted not to do so. The noble Lord, Lord Young, has specified those instances. This is despite the clear evidence of the health harms of second-hand smoke, strong public support for smoke-free pavement licences and examples from various councils, including Manchester, of this measure being introduced successfully.

The public health case for this policy is very clear. The scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke. Associated health effects include stroke, lung cancer and coronary heart disease. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who has just spoken, probably gave up to protect his health. We are seeking to protect others’ as well.

If we continue to allow smoking in pavement seating, passers-by, customers, staff and above all children will keep being exposed to significant amounts of tobacco smoke. The risk is particularly acute for staff, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, specified, who have no choice but to be exposed to people smoking when they work. Of course, children are particularly susceptible to harm from second-hand smoke; we all know that. In Canada, where most provinces have had laws to implement smoke-free patios outside hospitality venues for years, these laws have been popular, easy to enforce and had a positive impact on health. Where smoke-free patios were introduced, second-hand smoke exposure went down by almost a quarter.

Fortunately, the world is changing, as others have said, and smoking is no longer the norm. In the United Kingdom, this House over the last 20 years or so has led the way by helping to reduce smoking—for example, by banning smoking in public in settings, and the noble Earl played his part in that. In 2019, the Government set themselves the worthy ambition of seeking to reduce the number of smokers to below 5% of the population by 2030. While the Government have announced some measures to help deliver this ambition, we are still waiting for the comprehensive strategy needed. Expanding the number of outdoor spaces that are smoke free helps to deliver what the Government say they wish to do.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, raised some of the problems that mean that pavements cannot be pavements. My particular bugbear is cyclists on pavements; they drive me mad. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raised some of the tensions when deciding how we regulate public spaces, drawing attention to residents who live on streets where maybe there are pavement cafés.

Those things are worth considering but I want to return to the points made at the start of this group, so well explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, and to reference the earlier group on reviving the high street. One of the very few positive outcomes of the dreadful lockdown period was the emergence of imaginative ways of creating social engagement outdoors. When lockdown was such an antisocial action that kept us apart from each other, we found ways of connecting.

Café society is indeed a positive innovation, and regardless of the differences between the weather and climate in the UK and, for example, continental Europe, Brits have taken to this way of enjoying hospitality services. It is a great boost to that industry, which suffered so badly under lockdown.

One of the advantages of this spilling out of café society on to pavements is that it has allowed smokers and vapers to have a coffee or a drink alongside a cigarette, which I consider—shock, horror—to be all very civilised. It is certainly better than huddling outside in doorways in between sips of a drink.

I find it rather galling that Amendments 458, 459 and 461—all of which, one way or another, involve restricting smoking outdoors and making those restrictions a precondition of the licence—have been added to this group. Amendments 458 and 461 emphasise that where there is consumption of food or drink, the licence holder must ensure that smoking or vaping does not affect others. This seems an impossible duty. How could it ever be monitored? It is a degree of micromanagement of the life of communities. It seems the licensee is being threatened—they must prevent smoke drift affecting those in the vicinity, or they will not get a licence.

Tobacco smoke in outdoor areas is highly diluted and dissipates quickly in atmospheric conditions. I worry about moves towards such punitive restrictions on people smoking outside, when all they are doing is indulging in a legal, personal activity. Do we need to overregulate in such a fashion? Smokers, a minority no doubt, are perfectly respectable and considerate citizens and it would be wrong in any way to imply that in some or most cases they wilfully blow smoke into people’s faces or are not mindful of others in the vicinity.

As to involving vaping in this, targeting an anti-smoking device seems just wrong-headed. So many people I know who have stopped smoking did so by taking up vaping, and they improved their health in the process. If the proposers of the amendments are worried about any exposure to tobacco smoke outdoors, this would require that a proper scientific study be brought before the House, or at the very least a national consultation. Amendment 459 goes the full hog and states:

“Pavement licences may only be granted by a local authority subject to the condition that smoking is prohibited”.


It seems that an attempt is being made to use this Bill as a backdoor route to banning smoking in public places per se.

This Bill has been packaged as empowering local decision-making. Can we note that local authorities already have the powers at their discretion to regulate smoking in licensed premises and on pavements outside pubs, bars and restaurants with exterior tables and seating? It is up to them. How can we justify using this Bill to bring in central government legislation that threatens that if pubs and cafés do not ban smoking outside, no licence will be given to them? This seems wholly disproportionate.

We should note that such prescriptive rules could well lead to fewer customers, more high street closures and, certainly for many citizens who as adults choose to smoke, less freedom. It goes against the spirit of a levelling-up Bill when you have an imposition from the top of a kind of “we know best approach” to local matters and individual matters such as smoking, and it will grate with many people.

I appreciate that some people do not like people smoking. Some people find it loathsome. One noble Baroness has boasted about not tolerating smoke drift. There are a lot of things that I do not like and that I would rather not tolerate. I am not keen on people chewing gum or putting on make-up in public or eating with their mouth open or talking loudly or on babies crying when I want to sit quietly with my latte and read my book outside a café, but—my goodness—this is society. We tolerate each other; we rub along. There is something really positive about a café society. We should not use it as an excuse to bring in unnecessary regulations that set us at odds with one another as a means of policing and supervising personal, legal behaviour.

To finish, I do not know whether this will encourage or discourage, but I have noticed that smoking on the Terrace outside the Lords has been banned but somehow smoking on the Terrace of the other place is perfectly okay, and guess what? It is packed with people who work in the House of Lords or sit as Peers in the House of Lords because it is the only place to go—not to damage people but just to relax and have a cigarette with a coffee. They are not breaking the law.

Smoke-free Pavements

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I have to accept that we are on a journey. We need to learn from local areas, particularly those areas that have chosen locally to introduce a ban on smoking in the way that I think many local Lords are pushing for. We need to learn from that; you test what you want to expand and you expand what you have tested. We will look carefully at their experience.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that these areas are an extension of inside that is outside and that surveys show that smoke-free areas, inside and outside, are popular, healthier and child friendly? I am glad that he says that he will now work, this time, closely with the Department of Health. Will he ensure that he identifies, sees through and rebuts material that comes from other lobbies?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, any government Minister needs to be aware of when they are being lobbied. It is important to understand where the information is coming from and whether there is a prejudicial interest. It is also important that we in government work across departments to make the right decisions at the right time.

Business and Planning Act 2020 (Pavement Licences) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)]

I have received requests to speak from the noble Baronesses, Lady Northover and Lady Blake. I will call them in that order.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, which he very effectively introduced. The Government claim that they want the UK to be smoke free by 2030, but they have a funny way of going about this.

Years back, despite the efforts of the tobacco industry, working cross party we introduced into the United Kingdom the provision that public places such as pubs and restaurants should be smoke free. Was that not a transformation? It made sense during the pandemic that pavement licences should be granted, as people needed to be more distant from each other. Most people welcomed these new arrangements. Pavements were often widened to accommodate them. Does the Minister agree that the key thing to remember here is that these areas are simply extensions of the areas inside and need to be smoke free as well—for people’s health, for them to be family-friendly and to move closer to the smoke-free aim that the Government apparently have?

We ran into all the usual tobacco industry-briefed objections last year and—surprise, surprise—it turned out that the noble Lord’s department had not properly consulted the Department of Health on the matter and had to scurry to do so. Has it fully done so this time?

The objections from the tobacco industry are so familiar to the Department of Health. The noble Lord, Lord Young, took these objections apart last week. I wish we had a stronger weapon than an amendment to an SI that was going to be just slipped through, having been debated in Grand Committee, where noble Lords cannot vote and would knock out the whole SI if we did. This SI will barely have been registered by most in your Lordships’ House. Thank goodness the noble Lord, Lord Young, noticed and flagged it to the rest of us.

If this amendment is lost, the Minister should not take that as the will of this House. I am fully confident that if and when we debate this in legislation, there will be overwhelming cross-party support in this House for helping to tackle the terrible scourge of smoking. The department should be very wary of the briefings and influential lobbies that push it in another direction. I hope I do not hear very familiar objections voiced by the Minister in a minute. On these Benches we strongly support this amendment and are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for tabling it. I hope he calls a vote.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Faulkner for bringing this really important issue into the Chamber. His very well-informed and passionate speech does not need too much adding to.

I want to bring in a slightly different dimension. My noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, both referenced the speeches in Grand Committee, which were really well put together; I recommend that everyone have a look at them in Hansard. We should also look at what we have learned over the last 18 months of the devastating impact of the coronavirus. We have been on an incredibly steep learning curve in understanding how the virus has impacted on the people who live in our communities. We have a duty, surely, to look at all the evidence before us.

Covid-19 is often described as a cruel virus and it has exposed health inequalities in the most vicious way. Surely we must learn from the knowledge that those suffering from underlying health conditions have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Smoking is a major contributory factor to those health conditions. Do we not have a responsibility to do everything in our power to reduce exposure to the impact of smoke inhalation? I am referring to both the customers and the staff in the premises we are talking about.

I would also like to emphasise the points that the noble Lord, Lord Young, made in Grand Committee about the lack of evidence and the lack of consultation with local authorities, which would have demonstrated that there has just not been the evidence that we should be concerned about the impact on the businesses we are talking about.

We have an opportunity to make an improvement to the provisions in the Building and Planning Act 2020. Of course, the irony is that the Act was brought in specifically to deal with the impact of coronavirus. I hope we will recognise the public health improvement outlined in my noble friend Lord Faulkner’s amendment and that we will all come together to show our support accordingly.

Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Northover]

18: Clause 5, page 5, line 6, at end insert—
“( ) Pavement licences may only be granted by a local authority subject to the condition that smoking is prohibited.”

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

Amendment 18 is in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. We all want to get the hospitality sector moving again. I remind noble Lords that over 85% of people do not smoke. There is a public health issue here, but there is also the issue of making pubs and restaurants appealing to the vast majority of people. The UK hospitality sector will not recover if we cannot make it an enjoyable experience for the majority of its clients—that includes all those non-smokers and their children—as well as safe and enjoyable for the staff who may already be worried about returning to work.

The Bill proposes that restaurants and pubs should be able to use outside spaces for their customers to spill out into. People are safer from Covid-19 in the fresh air than inside buildings and, given the restrictions on numbers inside, this enables more customers to be catered for. The Government seek to balance economic with public health needs. Thus, in effect, the footprint of the pub or restaurant is expanded outside. We have already debated how these new needs and demands must be balanced with other considerations—the vital need to be inclusive, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and others so passionately put it.

Amendment 18 specifies that pavement licences may only be granted by a local authority subject to the condition that smoking is prohibited in such spaces. It is a simple and straightforward proposition. We all worked together, across all parties and none, on banning smoking in public places. That was transformative for public health, for the prevention of illness through second-hand smoke, for those working in these environments, and for the benefit of families and pregnant women. It is now widely accepted as a benefit and few people seek to turn back the clock.

However, under this Bill, the footprint of pubs and restaurants will, as I said, extend outside. If such an extension, for which there are good reasons, is to be granted, then these newly defined public places must also be smoke free for all the same public health and other reasons that the interiors of pubs and restaurants are smoke free.

The noble Earl, Lord Howe, who shared Second Reading with the Minister, has contributed significantly over many years as we have sought to combat smoking. I hope that both Ministers know that the words that they might have been given to reply to this amendment to the effect that local authorities “can” take such action is a world away from a provision saying that they “must” take such action. As the noble Earl will remember, prior to the introduction of smoke-free enclosed public places in the Health Act 2006 the hospitality trade did not support legislation that was simply local. It wanted a level playing field, provided by national legislation that covered all hospitality venues. That is why we need national action and “must” not “can”.

I first noticed this issue when I saw a petition organised to try to persuade the City of London and Westminster City Council to do this. A number of local businesses support it, but the council has not agreed, and therefore no progress is being made. As soon as I flagged this issue up at Second Reading, only one week ago, with ASH’s help and to my delight but not to my surprise, I secured support from every Bench in this House, as represented by the amendment. I am delighted to say that we also have the support of a former Secretary of State for Heath, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.

In the space of a week, we have also secured support for this amendment from the 10 local authorities that make up Greater Manchester, including the cities of Manchester and Salford, and from Liverpool and Newcastle, Oxfordshire County Council, and the Local Government Association itself. I am extremely grateful to them all in their clear concern for the pubs, restaurants and citizens in their area. This needs to be national.

The Government have said that they want to achieve a smoke-free England by 2030. There is a danger in this Bill of things going backwards and not forwards. For those who think that the urgent measures taken in the Bill should not be impeded, such as perhaps the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Neville-Rolfe, I remind noble Lords of the numbers: 85% of people do not smoke. If we are to encourage them back to using pubs and restaurants, let us make it easy for proprietors to implement this measure, so that they can make their establishments as attractive as possible.

I hope therefore that the noble Lord will see the case and has already heard the strength of feeling on this issue in the House. We banned smoking in interior public places, and that ban must be sustained as we redefine in the Bill what public places are. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I put my name to the noble Baroness’s amendment to indicate cross-party support, and I now add a brief footnote to her excellent speech.

Winding up the Second Reading debate last Monday, my noble friend Lord Howe said, in connection with another section of the Bill:

“The Government are clear that workers should not be forced into an unsafe workplace and that the health and safety of workers should not be put at risk.”—[Official Report, 6/7/20; col. 970.]


One of the principal reasons for the Health Act 2006, which banned smoking in pubs, was to protect employees from the health risks of passive smoking, as well as from the irritation and smell of the smoke. Under the Bill, employees of pubs will have to deliver drinks and collect glasses from the pavements, and they should be entitled to continue to work in a smoke-free atmosphere, as set out in the Health Act 2006.

In response to the case made last week by the noble Baroness, my noble friend Lord Howe said that

“the local authority can impose locally-set conditions on licences … that … can include restricting smoking in areas not designated for smokers.”—[Official Report, 6/7/20; col. 971.]

I do not believe that this is good enough. When Parliament considered banning smoking in pubs, it rejected the policy of leaving it to local discretion. It was to be a clear, national public health policy, and so should this be. As the noble Baroness said, the Local Government Association does not want local discretion. Doing that would blunt the public health message and lead to uncertainty among customers. From the industry’s point of view, it is right that there should be a level playing field.

I urge my noble friend to think again and give a positive response, otherwise I fear that, for the first time since I joined your Lordships’ House, I may be obliged to vote against my party on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Robathan has a smoke-free family and to hear about his ill-spent youth as an 11 year-old smoker. But as I said previously, this is emergency and temporary legislation and should not be a backdoor route to ban smoking in public places.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response and especially for grouping me with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, as part of this dream team. There is no reason why the Minister would know this, but when the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was the Secretary of State, I was a mere Whip in the coalition, and deputising for part of that dream team—the noble Earl, Lord Howe. I understand why the noble Earl might have felt it difficult to give the speech that the Minister was given by his department this evening. It would have been immensely difficult for part of that real dream team to do that.

I am very thankful to noble Lords for their contributions. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, for their comments about moving fast, but they did not seem to get the point that I was making which is that we need to get this sector up and running. Given that almost 90% of us do not smoke, the amendment would make establishments more rather than less attractive, more viable rather than less so, as well as tackling the public health challenge that everyone has laid out. The fact that so many cities have expressed support to me in the space of a few days shows that people can move fast on this. I trust that, in fact, while we have been speaking, the Government are sending the write rounds on the concession that I think is needed on this amendment. I know that the Department of Health and Social Care has been in touch with ASH today and we are very happy to work with the Government on this.

I am, as the Minister will see, disappointed in his response. I realise that he is constrained and that he will be perhaps less familiar with the history of this House and the cross-party involvement in this issue, although I think that he has probably gathered that from the range of people who have spoken. At this stage, I will withdraw the amendment, although we will return to it next week.

The ideal situation is that the Government come forward with their own amendment so that we do not have to have a vote on it next week. I hope very much that the discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care—I am looking at the Box at the moment—will bear fruit. I also look at that part of the dream team sitting on the Bishops’ Benches. I hope that next week we can come to a resolution that we are all happy with.

Amendment 18 withdrawn.