Downing Street Says

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) informed journalists that, having listened to the range of opinion on the issue, health ministers intended to hold discussions with MPs seeking to amend the bill to remove the exemption of pubs which don’t serve food from the proposed ban. Following these discussions it was the Government’s intention to allow its MPs, including ministers, a free vote on the amendment. Asked if the free vote was inconsistent with the Government’s manifesto commitments, the PMOS said that the manifesto commitment was to ban smoking in 95 per cent of public areas.

Asked why there had been a change of heart, the PMOS said that we recognised that the public debate had moved on. The debate within the entertainment industry had moved on and people had expressed concerns about the practicality of separating food and non-food areas, particularly if there might be a review after three years. It was sensible to listen to those types of concerns. As the Prime Minister had said at his press conference before Christmas, this was a one-off issue and people did have particular views on it. So the sensible thing to do was to allow people to have a free vote on the issue. Asked how the Prime Minister would vote, the PMOS said that as with previous issues which had had a free vote, the Prime Minister would not signal his position in advance because he believed it was important that people were not overly-influenced by his position.

Asked why the Government was not simply backing a total ban on smoking in public areas, the PMOS said that this was an issue on which, as the Prime Minister had always said, there was a difficult balance to be struck. There was the balance between the rights of non-smokers and the rights of smokers. There were also practical issues. People had different views about how to strike that balance. MPs have different views and ministers had different views. Therefore it was right and proper to listen to the debate and recognise that the public view on this appears to have shifted. Equally it was important to allow MPs to reflect their own views as well.

Asked if it was fair to say that the Government recognised that if it pushed for the original legislation it would be defeated, the PMOS said that what it was fair to say was that we recognised the concerns of the industry and the change in the public mood on this issue. Asked how he characterised the public mood, the PMOS said that looking back at what the Prime Minister had said on this issue in the House of Commons, he had recognised that the momentum of the public mood was going towards a complete ban. He had recognised that in his public comments. That was partly what had shaped the Government’s decision to hold a free vote, but it would be for MPs to decide.

1 Comment »

if you can smoke in jail, why can’t you smoke in a pub??

if you can smoke in DOWNING STREET with foreign officials, why can’t you smoke in a train station.

and so on!!!!!!!!

does the smoking ban apply to the PRIVATE BAR of the HOUSES OF COMMONS????
Comment by David — 6 Mar 2007 on 8:41 pm | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Smoking

1 Comment »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries