Smoking ban consultation published

The government is sticking to its guns on proposals for a 'half-way house' smoking ban forcing pubs to choose between smokers and food.

The newly published consultation on plans for a workplace smoking ban contains the controversial proposal to exempt pubs which do not serve prepared food. The ban would come into force across England by 2008.

The Scottish Assembly has put in place its own proposals for a ban, while the Welsh assembly is also considering a complete smoking ban.

The proposal for England has been criticised by the health lobby as not going far enough, and by trade bodies including the British Beer and Pub Association as unenforceable.

Newspaper reports at the weekend suggested that the government planned to go further, with a total ban on smoking in pubs. However, the Department of Health (DoH) has dismissed the reports as speculation, and is pressing on with the original proposals.

The consultation also adds to the uncertainty over the definition of prepared foods by proposing two possible approaches to legislation.

The DoH's preferred option is to have a list of pre-prepared snack foods smoking pubs could sell clearly defined by regulations.

In this case, "the intention is that the list of snacks should be capable of being varied from time to time, in consultation with the hospitality industry."

The alternative would be to have a broad definition of foods that are low risk, such as "fruit, vegetables and other ambient shelf-stable products" - a definition which would take in crisps and other bagged snacks.

However, the DoH acknowledges this second approach would leave "significant room for uncertainty and different interpretations in different parts of the country". The consultation, based on the White Paper published last November, will run until September 5. Legislation is expected to be tabled in Parliament soon after.

The DoH has also firmly rejected two possible compromise solutions put forward by the trade. The consultation makes it clear that the legislation would not allow pubs to "be non-smoking and serve food at lunchtime but be smoking and serve no food in the evening", nor to "have a non-smoking food room as part of a smoking licensed premises".