Committee
Health and Sport Committee 16 June 2015
16 Jun 2015 · S4 · Health and Sport Committee
Item of business
Smoking Prohibition (Children in Motor Vehicles) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
Simon Clark
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Obviously, I cannot speak for the police. They are going to speak on the subject a bit later. As a member of the public who does not know enough about the police’s work, I would have thought that they have enough to do without another section of society being criminalised. On pulling cars over to check that a driver who is smoking does not have a child in the back, you said earlier that the police can tell quite easily whether there is a child in the back—well, I disagree. These days, a lot of cars have tinted windows in the back, and the police will never see whether a small child is there. We have serious concerns that, as soon as the bill is enacted, the anti-smoking lobby will come back and say, “Let’s ban smoking in all private vehicles, regardless of whether children are present.” We know that that is going to happen. Since 2011, the British Medical Association has been calling for a ban on smoking in all private vehicles, regardless of whether children are present. Action on Smoking and Health in London has published its five-year strategy in a report called “Smoking Still Kills”, in which it calls for a consultation on banning smoking in all private vehicles. We know where that is leading—ASH wants a ban on smoking in all private vehicles. We will have a situation where a lone driver, sitting in his own car on his own, lights a cigarette and suddenly he is a criminal. He can be prosecuted for it. That is very worrying. You say that we will not have a ban on smoking in the home if children are present. I certainly hope not although, likewise, I hope that parents will be considerate and perhaps will have one room where they smoke or will smoke in the garden. Let us face it, though: 15 years ago, nobody thought that we were going to have a public smoking ban that would not allow smoking in any pub or club in the country, including working men’s clubs. Nobody foresaw that back in 2000 yet, within five or six years, we had a comprehensive ban in Scotland, and in another year we had a comprehensive ban in England and Wales. That is why it is unwise to predict that such things will not happen. I am afraid that the tobacco control lobby has a policy called the next logical step. It is never satisfied. It will go from a ban on smoking in cars with children to a ban in all private vehicles. It will then up the ante and quite likely try, if not to actually ban smoking in the home, to name and shame people and to make people feel incredibly guilty about having the temerity to light a cigarette. I did a phone-in on Radio Scotland this morning. Somebody said that we need to ban mothers who are pushing their buggies from smoking at the same time. Where is this going to go? Are we seriously going to ban a mother from pushing her buggy in the park and smoking at the same time? I am a great believer in education. The big drop in smoking rates in this country happened between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s, and it was all down to education of people about the health risks of smoking. Over the past 15 years, in Scotland and in the UK generally, smoking rates have continued to fall, but not by huge amounts, yet we have had a series of pretty draconian legislation—a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship, a smoking ban, a ban on vending machine sales, a ban on display of tobacco in shops and now the introduction of plain packaging. All that legislation has had relatively little impact when compared with the impact of the basic health education that people were given in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I am concerned that we are legislating for legislation’s sake, and I am not convinced that it will have any significant impact. The sad fact is that the people who are antisocial and inconsiderate enough to smoke in a car with children will probably just ignore legislation against it. You mentioned that the mobile phone legislation has been a success, but I am not convinced that it has been, to be honest. Of course, before the mobile phone legislation was brought in, there were some very clear cases of accidents involving lorries where drivers were on the phone and cyclists had been killed, for example. I am not suggesting that there is no risk to a child’s health from someone smoking in their presence, but the point about the evidence on passive smoking is that someone has to be exposed to environmental tobacco smoke consistently—day after day, month after month—for perhaps 10 or 15 years for it to have any significant impact. I am not suggesting that we go back to the 1960s and 1970s, but the fact is that, in those days, the majority of the population smoked and children grew up in smoky households and were transported in smoky cars and vehicles. We do not want to go back to that, and yet that baby boom generation is living longer and healthier lives than any generation before. Before anyone jumps in, I am not associating the two things; rather, I am saying that sometimes the impact of second-hand smoke is exaggerated in order to make smokers feel guilty about their habit. I am a lifelong non-smoker. The attacks on smokers over the past 10 or 15 years have been disproportionate. Smokers are an easy target and it is very easy to make them feel guilty. I do not think that smokers should feel guilty as long as they smoke responsibly and considerately. They are smoking a legal product and are making a huge contribution to the country’s finances through tobacco taxation. We must draw a line and say, “Enough’s enough.” There is a public smoking ban, a display ban and there will be plain packaging—where will it end?
In the same item of business
The Convener
Lab
Agenda item 4 is evidence on the Smoking Prohibition (Children in Motor Vehicles) (Scotland) Bill. I welcome Simon Clark, director of the Freedom Organisatio...
Richard Lyle
SNP
I am a car driver and a smoker, and I do not feel threatened by the bill. Your position as expressed in your submission is: “FOREST does not support the int...
Simon Clark (Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco)
I do not think that you should ban everything that might not be wise. Parents should err on the side of caution on certain things. We have been saying for ma...
Richard Lyle
SNP
I have two grandchildren. I have two child seats in the back of my car. I do not smoke in my car when my grandchildren are in it. At the end of the day, the ...
Simon Clark
To be frank, I am slightly sceptical about them. Introducing legislation on the basis of surveys of children of that age is a bit dodgy. We cannot simply ass...
Richard Lyle
SNP
The nub of your argument is that you feel that the bill is an encroachment on people’s civil liberties. I smoke, and I smoke in my car, and I do not feel thr...
Simon Clark
Obviously, I cannot speak for the police. They are going to speak on the subject a bit later. As a member of the public who does not know enough about the po...
Dr Simpson
Lab
May I just correct one thing? Kenny Gibson, with my support, introduced a bill in 1999, proposing that there should be a ban on smoking in restaurants—anywhe...
Simon Clark
I am not an expert, so I probably should not answer that question. I think that parents should err on the side of caution. It is common sense that any parent...
Dr Simpson
Lab
So we can add to the list that passive smoking research is not valid, and research on smoking in cars—
Simon Clark
Now you are exaggerating.
Dr Simpson
Lab
That is what you are saying.
Simon Clark
I am not saying that it is not valid.
Dr Simpson
Lab
You are saying that the research is not valid unless it supports your case.
Simon Clark
I am saying that the threat of second-hand smoke has been exaggerated. I cannot repeat often enough that I am not encouraging people to smoke in a car with c...
Dr Simpson
Lab
The Government did not accept Kenny Gibson’s proposals in 1999 because, at that point, the research on passive smoking was not good enough. However, within t...
Simon Clark
The problem is that workers could have been protected by the provision of designated smoking rooms.
Dr Simpson
Lab
We tried that. When Susan Deacon refused to take up Kenny Gibson’s bill in 1999, she said that ventilation systems would be introduced. It was clear from the...
The Convener
Lab
That is in the past. We are dealing with another bill today.
Dennis Robertson
SNP
I am a bit confused, Mr Clark. You say that you would have more respect if the Government called for a ban on tobacco altogether. Fair enough, there would be...
Simon Clark
No, sorry.
Dennis Robertson
SNP
I did not think that you would.
Simon Clark
I am not sure where you got the 24 per cent figure. Our understanding is that research shows that fewer than 13 per cent of children are exposed to tobacco s...
Dennis Robertson
SNP
So you say that that is too high.
Simon Clark
About 1 per cent of children are regularly exposed to tobacco smoke. If someone is just exposed very occasionally, among that 13 per cent, I do not believe t...
Dennis Robertson
SNP
You mention the figure of 13 per cent, but that gives you no idea whether any of those children have respiratory problems. If an adult is smoking irresponsib...
Simon Clark
Again, that would be patronising for the vast majority of smokers who know how to behave. I am a bit disturbed about some of the language that you use—for ex...
Dennis Robertson
SNP
I did not say that smoking was to blame for asthma; I said that a child’s asthma could be exacerbated by an adult smoking.
Simon Clark
Sure. However, I do not think that we have gone down the education route on smoking in cars when children are present. I think that legislation should be a l...
Dennis Robertson
SNP
The point that I cannot come to terms with in your argument is that you seem to accept that, during a three-year moratorium, children will still be exposed t...