Health Secretary John Reid has ordered Britain's publicans and restaurateurs to draw up plans to phase in smoking restrictions across all their premises as the first step towards a blanket national ban.
The dramatic ultimatum - made in private to leading representatives of the leisure industry last week - confirms that the government is genuine in its desire to ban smoking in public places.
At the Labour Party's National Policy Forum in Warwick yesterday, government officials thrashed out details that marked the first step towards introducing a smoking ban.
'Everyone is agreed that passive smoking is a serious problem and we have agreed to give serious consideration to a range of measures,' said a party spokesman. 'The proposed language shows our intent to look at this issue in the most effective way.'
A smoking ban was first mooted on Labour's Big Conversation website and Downing Street is known to privately support some form of ban in public places.
Until now it has been thought that the ban would be achieved by devolving the decision to local councils. However, Reid believes the plan is too complicated. Likewise health officials are concerned an overnight ban may also have problems. The Irish government, which banned smoking in public places last March, spent several years educating the public before it introduced prohibition.
Instead Reid has suggested a 'phased' strategy which has found support from both the hospitality industry and health campaigners. It draws its inspiration from Norway, where the government started phasing in smoking restrictions in the late 1980s, stipulating that 25 per cent of all tables in bars and restaurants must be non-smoking. Over the next 15 years it increased the percentage; first to 50 per cent, then 75, and finally, this June, to an outright ban.
Anti-smoking groups gave a cautious welcome to the news. 'The Norwegian model is worth looking at, but it took more than 10 years for Norway to go completely smoke-free,' said Deborah Arnott, director of Action on Smoking and Health. 'We certainly don't think it should take that long here.'
Mark Hastings, a spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association, which was represented at last week's meeting with Reid, declined to comment specifically on the government's new plan, but acknowledged that it was something being examined 'as part of a broad range of options'.
The hospitality industry is likely to seize on the Norwegian blueprint as it is vehemently opposed to the idea of local authorities imposing their own bans.
'The one thing that unites all sides on this debate is that if the government is going down the route to a ban, it should not be left to local authorities to decide,' Hastings said. 'You'll end up with strange situations where, say, Leicester allows smoking and Birmingham bans it.'
Tim Martin, influential chairman of pub chain giant JD Wetherspoon, which also met Reid last week, recently argued that a national ban was preferable to a piecemeal approach.
Health campaigners also believe allowing local authorities to impose smoking bans is a flawed idea. Arnott said: 'It would create a halfway house that's bad for workers' health and bad for business. It would make it very difficult for businesses to plan effectively for the future, as local authorities would be going smoke-free in dribs and drabs, not according to any clear timetable. What we need is a level playing field that will be easy to enforce and easy for business to plan for.'
Reid is understood to have ordered representatives of the hospitality industry to prepare plans for phasing in ever-tighter restrictions on smoking in public places after becoming frustrated by their attempts to sideline the issue.
A series of meetings between the government and the hospitality industry in recent months failed to agree common ground on the issue, prompting health officials to offer leisure bosses a choice between new powers for local authorities or an agreement to phase in a ban over time.
The latter solution would avoid the need for legislation and allow the government to deflect the accusation that it is presiding over a 'nanny state', a charge which it is keen to play down in the run-up to an election.
A belief that the leisure industry believes a ban is inevitable in the future has been reinforced by brewing chain Greene King's decision to roll out smoke-free pubs.
Adam Collett, marketing director for the company said: 'Our policy is to increase the space devoted to non-smoking throughout our estate, move to completely smoke-free environments in family pubs and to encourage the growth of 100 per cent smoke-free businesses.'
