UK Smoking Ban

The UK smoking ban is perhaps the most wide reaching and stringent of all bans around the world.

When Introduced in July 2007, it encompassed every enclosed and substantially enclosed public space in the country with the only exceptions being those spaces classed as peoples homes and the bar in the houses of parliament.

Every other country in the EU opted for legislation that fell short of such a wide reaching ban.

History of the UK smoking ban

Smoking bans have been debated in the UK parliament for many years but were never successfully implemented due to the weakness of the scientific evidence against passive smoke. In November 2004 The Scientific Committee On Tobacco And Health (SCOTH) issued a report that concluded passive smoke "represents a substantial public health hazard". SCOTH, which was made up of 16 members, was criticised for bias as 14 of its members were from either the anti-smoking movement who were actively campaigning for bans or from the pharmaceutical industry who were profiting from nicotine replacement therapy sales wherever bans were introduced. Despite this bias and the fact that no new research had been presented, the SCOTH findings catapulted passive smoke from a minor nuisance to a major public health issue.

For many years the anti smoking movement in the UK used the death of entertainer Roy Castle as an emotional claim for the justification of smoking bans. Having self diagnosed the causes of his illness, there is considerable evidence that it was not at all smoke related.

Click here for more information on Roy Castle »»

The Labour government presented its election manifesto which promised restrictions on tobacco usage in public that would see smoking banned in restaurants and pubs that served food but shortly after winning their historic third term in office in 2005 they dropped these manifesto pledges in favour of a total ban. Surveys from the Office of National Statistics had shown that almost two thirds of the public were against a total ban but the government went ahead and introduced it anyway at the beginning of the summer of 2007. No consideration was taken of the fact that the Governments own Health and Safety Executive was still stating it couldn't find any link between passive smoke and disease.

Effects of the ban

A perfectly normal wet British summer was blamed for the initial drop in trade as pubs, clubs and bingo halls saw sharp downturns but by the winter months it was clear that the smoking ban was having a devastating effect on the hospitality trade with an average of 4 pubs a day closing and large pubcos reporting huge drops in share prices. Trade figures showed the extent of the problem with pub closures in 2005 and 2006 being reported in the low 200's while in the first eight months after the bans introduction that shot up to 1400.

A survey by Yorview released at the end of April 2008 predicted huge losses for the Labour Government due to the unpopularity and effects of the UK smoking ban; these survey results were borne out the following month when Labour suffered its worst election results for over 40 years.

The anti smoking movement was to a certain extent unable to deny the losses and so advised the hospitality sector to start selling food in an effort to counter their losses. This however only had a limited effect in an already competitive catering market challenging for a finite number of diners.

During the second year of the smoking ban in England and Wales the onset of an economic downturn began to be used as an excuse for the huge number of pub closures. This however could not explain the ten fold increase of losses in the first year and is at odds with the history of previous economic downturns when pubs have traditionally 'boomed'. In fact analysts have pointed out that, during the seventies the pub trade peaked at a time of runaway inflation and record unemployment.

Compliance with the legislation

The official figures on compliance with the legislation show that, despite 98% of landlords blaming the UK smoking ban for loss of trade, there are few pubs breaking the law. This can be attributed mainly to the huge fines and punishments threatened for non compliance. One local paper ran a story on the injustices of this quoting 3 court cases from that week "Local man found guilty of mugging an old lady - fined £240; Youth found guilty of stealing over 20 cars and racing them through the streets - fined £185; Landlord found guilty of failing to prevent smoking in a non smoking area - fined £10,500.

In spite of the possibility of huge fines and threats to their pub licenses reports have come from most areas of the country that the numbers of pubs running 'smokeasies' or openly defying the ban is continuing to rise.

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Copyright © The Smoking Ban 2008