Tory peer says no-smoking signs to cost pubs 2million pounds

Tory health spokesman in the Lords Earl Howe has pressed the Government to think again about the laws requiring large no-smoking signs to be displayed at pubs when the ban comes in.

He fears licensees - who will already face huge fines if someone is found to be smoking in their premises - will also fall foul of the fines for the correct displaying of signage.

We need to keep reminding ourselves that if we are looking for bad guys in this area, we should not pick on pubs​Earl Howe.

He said when the seat-belt law was passed there was no legal requirement for cars to display stickers warning passengers to wear seat-belts and added: "Even without the signage requirements, the burdens the Bill will place on pubs and clubs in particular are significant."​

He went on: "I am afraid I have severe difficulty reconciling myself to a clause in this Bill that takes us into this kind of regulatory dimension. It is officious, and it will prove expensive. ​

"The cost of the new signage will be more than £2 million to the pub industry alone."

Government health minister Lord Warner said: ​·​ Smokers flouting ban will be fined up to £200·​ Licensees who 'fail to prevent smoking' will be fined up to £2,500·​ Licensees who fail to display the correct signage will get a £200 fixed penalty·​ Persistent signage offenders could face fines of up to £1,000

"We need to keep reminding ourselves that if we are looking for bad guys in this area, we should not pick on pub or club owners or hoteliers, or indeed business generally. They are not the bad guys, yet under the Bill they will be liable to criminal penalties if they fail to stop a smoker from smoking on smoke-free premises, or if they fail to put up notices of the precise specification in their premises, even if no one in the place smokes or ever has done.

Not surprisingly, the pub and hotel trade feels pretty sore about this."

Earl Howe said now there was to be a total ban, instead of a partial one, the need for no smoking signs had diminished.

He also said it was unnecessary to make pubs continue to show these signs indefinitely and asked for a sunset clause so that after three years - when everyone was well aware that smoking in public places was banned - signage would no longer be a legal requirement.

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Your Comments​Alastair Elliott​ via email 11/05/2006"Comment:The comments from Lord Warner indicate two things in my view. Firstly the Governments contempt for the British People and secondly their acknowledgement that this ban is not wanted. To believe as Lord Warner does that the public will not understand about the ban, is insulting in the extreme. The Government has spent millions of pounds of our money sponsoring people like ASH and the cancer charities to promote demonisation of the smoker. The media in general has been the Puppets of the anti smoking lobby, rarely printing the truth about the fallacy behind the science, and more importantly the continual lying by ASH and the cancer charities as well as by HMG. These lies are well documented and can be proved. Why then are the National Press not clamouring to print the proof. In short they are afraid of the economic consequences. Lord Warner's explanation about the fines being necessary to ensure enforcement is made easier indicates very clearly the hostility to this ban. It is now evident even in polls by Cancer UK that when asked the Public make their views clear that a ban will not help anyone, this had reached 61.3% before that poll mysteriously disappeared. If this ban was so widely welcomed there is no need for draconian fines, the public will embarrass it without any trouble. The fact is as we've seen in Scotland it is not welcome and there has been public dis-order. How does the government expect licensees to survive even one fine, do they have any idea how little profit the average small pub makes. If they did then they would know this level of fine will bankrupt many pubs. Mind you I suppose that will mean that there would be less for EHO's to police.As Lord Stoddart asked in The Debate, are the LA's going to recruit the thousands of new 'Inspectors'. No make no mistake, this ban if it goes through will not only result in thousands of closures due to lose of income, but those who just survive will be bankrupted by fines, if they are unfortunate enough to be 'caught', not forcing customers to stop smoking. And if neither of those kill the business the resultant civil action under the HRA will. In the words of Lord Harris of Highcross;

" What is now urgently required is more rigorous scrutiny of the puffed-up phantom of ' passive smoking'."

(Smoking out the Truth February 2005). Until that the public will need to accept that they have been lied to."