We resume our meeting and move to agenda item 2. I apologise to our witnesses for the delay. We had a long session earlier.
I welcome our first panel of witnesses to give evidence to the committee on the Smoking Prohibition (Children in Motor Vehicles) (Scotland) Bill. With us are Dr James Cant, who is the head of British Lung Foundation Scotland and Northern Ireland; Sheila Duffy, who is chief executive of ASH Scotland; and David McColgan, who is the policy and public affairs manager at the British Heart Foundation Scotland. All of them are members of the Scottish coalition on tobacco. I also welcome Celia Gardiner, who is the health improvement programme manager for tobacco at NHS Health Scotland.
We move immediately to questions. The first is from Richard Lyle.
I have an admission to make. I am a smoker, and I smoke in my car.
Ooh!
It may not be the done thing now, but if we go back 20 or 30 years, it was common. I smoked in my car when my kids were in the back. They are grown up now; my daughter and son do not smoke. My wife does not smoke either, now.
As far as some people are concerned, the bill will invade their privacy by affecting their ability to sit in their car smoking. However, I am leaning towards supporting the bill. I do not smoke in my car when my grandson or granddaughter is in it.
What effect will the bill have that will help children? What effects are there on children at present? What would you say to the person who says, “It’s my car. I’ll just put the windows down. The air will blow through and the smoke will go out the window”? One of the submissions—I think that it is the one from the British Lung Foundation Scotland—says that convertibles could be exempted. If there should be no smoking at all when children are in cars, why should there be an exemption for convertibles or whatever?
I begin by declaring an interest for the record. Neither I nor my organisation has had any contacts, financial or in kind, with the tobacco industry or any similar vested interests.
What I am about to tell you might surprise you: I have been in post at the British Lung Foundation for five and a half years and I have not yet told a single smoker to stop smoking, and I never will. It is not my job to judge in any way, shape or form. Had it not been for a slight twist of fortune as a teenager, I would probably be smoking in my car, as well.
This is very much a case of working together with adults, whether they smoke or not. It is absolutely not an attack on smokers. Again, it might surprise you to hear that I have, on a personal and organisational basis, defended the rights of people to smoke within the confines of their own environment. You have an absolute pledge from our organisation that although we want to work together to protect the next generation’s lungs, we are also always there to support, without prejudice or judgment, people whose lungs have been damaged for whatever reason.
You might be surprised by how much esoteric thinking went into whether there should be a ban on smoking in convertibles. I like to think that the approach that the BLF is proposing is pragmatic. We are trying to produce something that is seen to be enforceable and sensible; one thing that encourages us in that regard is that the most recent figures show that 85 per cent of the adult population are in favour of such a control and that, crucially, 72 per cent of people who smoke are in favour of it. We do not want to lose that level of support and consensus by being seen to be dogmatic when it comes to convertibles, for example.
It is absolutely crucial to differentiate between the impact of second-hand smoke—or the lack of it—in a convertible and the impact of second-hand smoke in a car even when the windows are wound down. Nowadays, we are in the fortunate position of being able to measure precisely the level of PM2.5—fine particulate matter—in a specific environment. Dr Sean Semple and his colleagues at the University of Aberdeen are world leaders in that. Their long-term studies have shown that, even with the windows wound down, any passenger in the car would encounter levels 10 times the World Health Organization’s stated safe level of PM2.5 exposure.
A crucial point that I want to get across before I finish is that there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke, given the number of toxins in the chemicals.
For the record, I make the same declaration of interests as Dr Cant. We are not anti-smoker, but we believe that the bill is proportionate and needed because of the damage that tobacco smoke does, particularly to children. There is excellent substantive evidence of that.
Earlier this year, we commissioned YouGov to do some fieldwork among adults in Scotland—it carried out that work in late February and early March—and it found that 85 per cent of Scottish adults overall and 72 per cent of smokers support the introduction of legislation to end smoking in cars in which there are children under 18. The research shows that there are very high levels of tobacco smoke in cars in which people are smoking and that the smoke builds up very quickly. We also know, from other research, that short-term rapid exposure causes a disproportionate amount of heavy damage and that—as Dr Cant said—winding down a window or putting on the air conditioning to blast air through the car does not prevent that damage.
In our written submission, we suggest that any car that is 50 per cent or more open could be exempt, because that would be in line with the principles that were put in place for the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.
I echo Dr Cant’s initial declaration.
Richard Lyle asked about the effect on children. A number of studies on that have been conducted with a focus on cardiovascular disease. A systematic review in 2011 showed that children who had been exposed to second-hand smoke had altered cholesterol profiles and had lower levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which is a protective cholesterol. A study of 11-year-olds who had been exposed to second-hand smoke showed that they had endothelial dysfunction, which affects the lining of the blood vessels and leads to atherosclerosis, which is a thickening of the blood vessel walls that ultimately leads to coronary artery disease and heart attack. There is clear evidence that exposing children to second-hand smoke leads to cardiovascular disease, and that study of 11-year-olds showed that that was already occurring in kids who had had only moderate to small exposure to second-hand smoke. That clearly shows—I echo Dr Cant’s comment—that there is no such thing as a safe level of tobacco smoke.
I echo my colleagues’ statements about not having any links to the tobacco industry.
The important thing about the bill is that it is about protecting children; as my colleagues have said, it is not about getting at smokers. A car is a confined space, and when children are in a car in which someone is smoking they breathe faster. Because they have smaller airways, they absorb the smoke much more quickly than an adult does. There is a general misconception among the public that winding down a window makes smoking in a car safe because there is fresh air coming in. However, we know that the danger is in the chemicals that are in second-hand smoke. As others have said, there is no safe level of second-hand smoke.
It is important that we put legislation in place in order to protect our children. It is not about having any baggage with smokers; we need it to protect our children. Second-hand smoke in cars can build up rapidly and reach very high concentrations, so we must not expose children to it.
I am a former smoker; I now use e-cigarettes, and I am very pleased that I have been able to encourage a few colleagues to take the same route out of smoking. I am also very pleased that, like Richard Lyle’s children, my children, who have long since become adults, do not smoke.
Although I am in favour of the bill’s general principles, I wonder whether you will allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment and ask: is this not the thin end of the wedge? Given your comment that there are no safe limits for smoking, is the logical next step for legislation to move from cars, which are enclosed spaces, to another enclosed space—the home—and then to what would pretty much be a complete ban? I am not so sure that I would be absolutely against that, but is this not, as I have said, the thin end of the wedge?
I caught Sheila Duffy shaking her head, so she will be first up this time.
I am not aware of anyone calling for legislation for domestic settings. This bill is about legislation for vehicles to which other forms of legislation including legislation on wearing seat belts and installation of child car seats, and a ban on mobile phone use while driving, apply. We are used to legislation that applies to vehicles. Moreover, the bill is aimed at protecting children in a very enclosed and concentrated environment, and it is warranted because of the large amount of evidence about the harm that is caused by tobacco smoke.
Members will know better than I do that politics is the art of the possible—and this proposal is possible and achievable and already has significant support. I can assure you that, as Sheila Duffy has suggested, no organisation that I have worked with—and certainly no one in my organisation—imagines a ban on smoking in domestic properties to be conceivable or feasible. From a civil liberties point of view, it would not be feasible and, indeed, would not be supportable.
The moment any one of us gets into a car, we immediately place ourselves under quite a significant list of restrictions and expectations in order to keep other road users and our passengers safe. Scotland has set a phenomenally ambitious target of being smoke free by 2034—that is defined as a smoking rate of 5 per cent or less—and to achieve that we will need a mixed suite of activities. The vast majority of the approach will be about changing behavioural norms; there are very few situations in which specific discrete legislation cannot encourage such behaviour change and—crucially, as Sheila Duffy said—provide protection.
I am glad that Mr MacKenzie has raised what I think is a very important issue, but I assure the committee that I do not see this in any way as part of a creeping legislative approach. This is a specific, carefully targeted and measured piece of legislation, and it should be seen in that light and against the wider campaigns that are being run in partnership between us, the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland to increase awareness of smoking in the home. The take it right outside campaign is an excellent example. We are not telling people not to smoke; instead, we are telling them that if they want to smoke, they should do so in a place where they can keep their family safe.
As a non-smoker, I am something of a zealot and an enthusiast for this cause, but you will forgive me if I point out a logical inconsistency. The damage that is done to our lungs through smoking comes down to the size of the enclosed space and the amount of time that we spend in that space, and the logical inconsistency is that your position on having an outright ban on smoking in homes, for instance, is scientifically and logically unsustainable. There is another argument to be made about public opinion, civil liberties, freedom and so on, and I think that by pretending that that argument does not exist you are doing your cause an injustice. You are not exploring the issue fully and in the round, and I have to say that I have been disappointed by the answers that you have given. Perhaps you might want to reflect on that and add to what you have already said.
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I will add to what has been said. One of the benefits of having this debate and having this bill up for consideration is that it will raise public awareness that tobacco smoke is, in itself, a harmful and damaging substance. We have evidence from other countries that people have voluntarily introduced additional restrictions when they have got that message. We know from the refresh work that ASH Scotland did with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen that parents and carers want to protect their children but that they do not always know what is effective in that regard.
As James Cant said, the overall objective is to put tobacco out of sight, out of fashion and out of mind for the next generation. We would like to raise awareness of the harmfulness of tobacco smoke—it is always harmful. The bill is timely and the change is possible. The Republic of Ireland has introduced the offence and England and Wales are on track to introduce it in October. It is on the table here, so we are supporting this legislation.
Since we are all owning up, I should say that I am not a smoker. I never have been and, personally, I hate the things. That said, there is something in what Mike MacKenzie said. To play devil’s advocate, in a situation in which a child grows up in a home with two heavy-smoking parents, how could you measure the damage that is done to that child only during the time when they are in a car with their parents who are smoking? How can we justify taking the action that is proposed? What sort of measurements would you envisage? How would we measure the outcomes?
From a cardiovascular disease point of view, the figures are fairly stark. Exposure to second-hand smoke increases someone’s chance of stroke by 25 per cent and chance of coronary heart disease by 30 per cent. The message is very much a child protection one. It is about ensuring that children are protected during car journeys.
I understand the devil’s advocate arguments, and the suggestion that the next step might concern what happens in the house. The British Heart Foundation Scotland, like ASH Scotland and BLF Scotland, would respond to that by saying that we are here today to talk about cars, as that is what the bill that is on the table is about. We equally supported the Scottish Government’s take it right outside campaign, but someone once said to me that, although it is easy to take it outside in the home, it is difficult to do so in a car. That is a valid point. On long—or short—car journeys, someone who lights up a cigarette cannot take it outside. Everyone is trapped in that confined space and has to breathe that second-hand smoke.
The interesting point about the take it right outside campaign was that it challenged the conception that you can hang out the window and have a cigarette or smoke in the kitchen with the window open. That does not work in a home, and simply opening the window in a car does not work, either. That is why we support this bill.
My question remains, though. If the child is living in that environment and the parents are not going into the back garden or—if they are living in a flat or something—going right outside to smoke, which means that damage is being done in the house, how can you measure the benefits of banning smoking in a car? What makes that so much more dangerous than living in the environment that I have described?
To measure the exposure in the car versus the exposure in the house would be challenging. My argument would be that banning smoking in cars would at least give that child a break, and would mean that they were not exposed to such high levels of smoke when they were in a confined space. From the point of view of the British Heart Foundation, it is the status of such exposure that means that people should not smoke in cars. As Sheila Duffy said, it also gives us another opportunity to educate people on the harm of second-hand smoke, which is part of what the take it right outside campaign was trying to do.
In this context, we are not telling people that they should stop smoking completely. Much like the British Lung Foundation, we are saying that they should not expose others to second-hand smoke. Quite often, that is the challenge. People know that, if they smoke, they are consuming the smoke and the chemicals that it contains, but they need to understand that the people around them are also being exposed. An adult would have the respect of the driver and be able to ask someone in a car not to smoke, but a child might just sit there during the journey. The child needs to be protected in that space.
It is hard to differentiate between smoking at home and smoking in a car, if a child is going between the two and is having the same experience. We need to look at where children are protected and educate people who smoke in the car that second-hand smoke is bad. It does not matter whether the window is cranked down a little bit. Others might have views on that, too.
Two recent studies from New Zealand showed an increase in voluntary restrictions in the home following smoke-free legislation and some evidence of protection for children from that legislation. In terms of the bill, you could listen to what children say, because there is documented evidence that children say that they feel choked and nauseous in the car. Many of them would like to ask people not to smoke in the car but far fewer have felt able to do so.
The bill should be seen as complementary to the on-going take it right outside advertising campaign. The beauty of the narrative of that advert was that the parent was trying to do the right thing. She was at the back kitchen window and she shooed her husband to shut the door when he came in because she thought that she was doing the right thing to protect her child.
That helped to convey two critical things. More than 85 per cent of second-hand smoke is invisible and has no smell. That is because it is caused by particles that are one twentieth the size of a grain of sand. A huge education programme must take place as part of this process, which would provide a wonderful opportunity to dovetail those messages.
There is a very good chance that the child who you describe in your scenario would have to attend the local sick kids hospital. Figures from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh indicate that more than 4,000 new cases of asthma, wheeze, glue ear and the like will appear in Scotland every year, almost certainly as a result of second-hand smoke. For ethical reasons, we cannot differentiate to what extent the smoking took place in the home or in a car. However, we have an opportunity to make a clear statement.
I envisage that, in a couple of years’ time—or even sooner—people will look at the issue in the same way that we look at putting a child in their car seat. You have to put the seat belt on because that is what you do to keep the child or young person safe on that journey.
As Sheila Duffy says, the emerging evidence—particularly from Australia, which is pioneering on this—is that there is a positive knock-on effect. To come back to the devil’s advocate question, the allegation that we face most often is that we want to help you to develop a nanny state. That is not what this is about. It is about engaging with adults in Scotland today to ensure that the next generation is able to break the chain in the way in which Richard Lyle’s family has done.
Sheila Duffy talked about cars that are 50 per cent or more open. We all know what a cabriolet is, for example, but how is “open” defined? How would you expect it to be defined for the purposes of practical enforcement?
It was just a rule of thumb, which was to bring the law into line with the rules that have been put in place for enclosed public spaces. We know that opening car windows and turning on the air conditioning will not sort the problem of tobacco smoke. It is still there in sufficient quantities to be considered harmful.
I just say that because a normal cabriolet would have a fold-down roof. You then have something like an old 2CV that has windows on the front and the sides and a roll-down roof. There must be a difference in the air circulation in those cars, too. That sounds mundane, but the fact is that different designs exist.
I liked the simplicity of the guidance on smoke-free enclosed public spaces. It was very clear and simple, although working out what fitted and what did not was perhaps less clear. What is proposed is in line with the existing legislation.
I presume that there is no support from the panel for including exemptions for convertibles in the bill.
If they are 50 per cent or more open.
I confess that we are relatively relaxed about whether the eventual legislation contains cabriolets. My experience of going through Easterhouse in our recent summer weather has not indicated that there are many 2CVs or cabriolets—certainly not with their roofs down. That is a relatively minor detail for us. We are much more focused on the more significant message. The BLF would certainly defer to the committee’s wisdom on the cabriolet question.
I was just thinking about enforcement. Identification is not easy.
Is it just a problem for the poor?
Exposure to second-hand smoke will increasingly have a social and economic element, because we have seen with the smoking rates that Scotland is doing very well in encouraging the reduction of smoking in the more affluent communities. The issue is absolutely an inequality one, as well.
How have their opinions on the bill been reflected? Do they view it as they view recent legislation on smoking in public places?
That is a critical element. A lot of our work has been geared to working with children in some of Scotland’s most deprived communities. We have done some work in Easterhouse to develop messages. Sheila Duffy mentioned previously that children very often feel disempowered; they feel that they do not have the authority or the voice to be able to speak in such a way. We have done extensive work in some of Glasgow’s more deprived areas, and we are currently doing work in Forth Valley as well, because it is crucial for us that children are given a voice and that entire communities are taken along in that way.
You are right to highlight the danger that many people feel that health is done to them rather than with them.
That is certainly the case with the smoking ban, is it not? We see evidence of that every time we walk along the street outside pubs and clubs. It is exclusion from their point of view. How do we know that the group of people you state the bill would directly impact on are in favour of it? Has any work—quantitative surveys, for example—been done with the group of people we are targeting?
Quite a lot of work was done with the take it right outside campaign last year. There was a lot of promotional activity that was targeted at parents in more deprived communities. That work was done outside Lidl and other such supermarkets. Basically, it was educational work. It was reported back that many parents said that they had not realised that there were all these chemicals in second-hand smoke. There is the perception that there is no harm if there is ventilation or windows are open and smoke cannot be seen, but we are talking about something in the atmosphere that is invisible to the eye and which people breathe in.
The committee will have received submissions from the University of Aberdeen. It has done work with Dylos meters, which can measure the amount of smoke in the air. James Cant and the BLF have done a lot of work on that in deprived communities.
We know that there is a real educational need and a misunderstanding about what the harm is from second-hand smoke. If the bill is passed, it will be important to build on that education and ensure that parents are aware of how harmful smoking is for their children and what they can do to protect them. Most parents want the best for their children—they do not want to knowingly harm them. There is a gap in knowledge, and we are working at breaking that down. Once it is generally better understood that harm lingers in the wake of smoke that can no longer be seen and dissipates very quickly through the house, we will make progress.
12:30
We have to accept that that message has not got through to that group, and that takes us to enforcement. People are not listening or they do not understand, so we are legislating. How do we enforce the legislation?
I still think that there is a big need for education.
But we have failed in many respects. I know that there needs to be a change in behaviour. That group is still the one that has the greatest number of smokers. That will be related to socioeconomic problems. Someone who is living a sad life is not going to go for an extra five years of that life, and they are not receiving the educational message. Many of them are still smoking; they are smoking when they are pregnant, with their children around at home, and with children in cars. That is the target group.
There are several different issues in there. We are not targeting an educational message about stopping smoking; the message is about protecting children. The message is different from the one about giving up smoking; it is about doing the best for your child, and I think that people are open to hearing it.
Perhaps I am not up to speed on the issue but, in hard-to-reach communities, we are struggling to reduce the prevalence of smoking among pregnant women.
I know that.
I would think that that would be when they would be more responsive to the message about protection and the health impacts on their child, not when the child is in the back of the car. The message will not necessarily have an impact on the community that I am talking about.
I would be happy to invite you to come and see some of our community work. I think that you would be heartened at the impact that the messages have on young people, the parents’ generation and, crucially, the grandparents’ generation. As we all know, grandparents have huge influence with children and practical significance because they provide childcare. When we go to work, we go into the community, but we also seek to work with families across the generations.
As Celia Gardiner highlighted, this is not about us trying to stop people smoking. We are talking about the protection of the next generation. Your point about smoking during pregnancy is hugely important, and it increases the importance of the priority that should be given to this particular piece of legislation.
It also increases the importance of making sure that we get across key messages. For example, many of those in deprived communities who smoke while they are pregnant might have a sense of fatalism or despair. The critical message to get across is that, if someone smokes during the first trimester, the stats tell us that their baby should be born unaffected by the impact. There is therefore an imperative to give up within the first trimester. The messaging is critical.
The work that we have done in communities is encouraging. If Scotland is going to achieve its ambition by 2034, society needs to take it on. We need to see it as something empowering and recognise that, if each member of a couple smokes a pack of 20 a day, by the time their child reaches the age of 18 or 21, they could have given £100,000 to that child. That is how Scotland needs to address the wider issues.
To come back to the specifics of the bill, we support it and it attracts us because we see it as having immediate and long-term impacts by safeguarding children’s lung health, and it has significant support from the population as a whole as well as from those people who smoke.
The bill is about enforcing legislation. If everything had been wonderful, we would not be at the stage of legislating and enforcing. As well as the legislation, there is the hope of the educational message refining our public message and targeting the people who we are talking about. The point was made earlier that we are not talking about the wider population, and I agree with that.
We are talking about legislation and enforcement. We anticipate that some people will not listen to the message, so how do we ensure that the bill is enforced effectively?
You are right to flag up enforcement. We believe that because the police are routinely out checking vehicles and enforcing other legislation, they would be best placed to monitor and be part of the enforcement. The Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland has said that it would be happy to work with the police to enforce the measure properly.
I previously mentioned two pieces of research that were done in New Zealand following the implementation of smoke-free legislation. The research concluded that smoke-free legislation for vehicles resulted in a drop in the likelihood of children going on to take up smoking, independent of smoking in the home and other areas. For me, the bill looks like an investment in the next generation.
Do you believe that you will have the support of hard-pressed communities if scarce police resources are used to enforce smoking legislation in cars rather than to tackle moneylenders, violence and drug dealers on the streets? Would enforcing a ban on smoking in cars divert police away from those things?
We hope that it can be done as part of the police’s regular traffic duties, rather than being an additional significant burden.
The closest parallel is seat belts. When legislation on seat belts was introduced, it gave priority and significance to parental or grandparental safety that might not otherwise have been given. Such initiatives also allow an opportunity for advertising campaigns, which really get the message across. We do not for a moment anticipate the diversion of police officers because of the legislation. I agree with Sheila Duffy that the measure should be part of police activities regarding road traffic offences.
Do you accept that the number of police officers or others who could carry out similar work is finite?
Were it not for the fact that smoking in cars has a permanent and sometimes fatal impact on children in Scotland on a daily basis, I would not be pushing for the legislation.
I accept your position, but many specific campaigns on drink driving, seat belts or mobile phones are conducted at Christmas, in the summer or on particular roads and those initiatives are usually information led. Perhaps you are saying that this is just an add-on and that there will be no specific campaign but that, if the police are doing a road check, or campaigning on seat belts or drink-driving, the measure would be added on. Is that what you are suggesting for police enforcement?
The British Heart Foundation Scotland does not have a position on how the measure should be enforced, but I suspect that Police Scotland or whoever runs the campaigns will decide when to do them. Drink-driving campaigns take place around Christmas, but I am sure that when we first imposed drink-driving legislation, people did not think that it would be a Christmas campaign. There is no reason why Police Scotland might not decide to take a week at the beginning of the summer holidays to crack down on smoking in cars.
James Cant’s point is valid. The bill gives us the opportunity to raise the profile of the issue and educate through legislation. All the things that you mentioned—mobile phones, seat belts and drink driving—are legislated for, and we have come up with ways of enforcing the legislation. Sheila Duffy’s point about it being part of the police’s regular road traffic duties is sensible.
But if we give the police more responsibilities, they will require more resources.
We could, for example, decide that tobacco and alcohol should be dealt with at the same time.
That would be one way of doing it.
I will try to be brief. I should declare that I am the convener of the cross-party group on heart disease and stroke, for which the BHF is part of the secretariat.
I have no qualms about the evidence on second-hand smoke. I sometimes think that when we talk about smoke we assume that, once the smoke has dissipated, there are no smoke chemicals left, so part of the problem is in getting the correct information across. In the short space of time that we have been talking this morning, I have heard all the witnesses mention education and awareness several times. Do we require legislation, or is it all about education and awareness?
I contend that we do need legislation. The most recent Scottish schools adolescent lifestyle and substance use survey statistics, which are based on interviews with 13 and 15-year-olds in Scotland, indicate that 22 per cent of them often or regularly travel in a car in which smoking is taking place. Sheila Duffy has already indicated that there is a sense of powerlessness. As an adult who just needed a lift to work, I have felt powerless myself, but children and young people are certainly powerless to intervene to protect themselves in that situation. When I put that statistic alongside the scale of the immediate and long-term medical threat that smoking causes to children and young people, my conclusion is that there is an imperative to legislate.
As I said, I have no qualms about the evidence and the medical effects and impacts. I think that they are a given, to be perfectly honest. I am taking up the convener’s point about enforcement but I am still asking whether it is about education and awareness. Governments and Parliaments are sometimes accused of passing legislation that is not necessary when they should take a different approach. I just wonder whether we need to be smarter about education and awareness. For example, every time a car is sold, should it have a no smoking sticker attached to the handbook to remind people not to smoke if there are children in the car? Should a sensor be built into the car, so that when someone lights up it goes off, like the sensor that goes off if you are not wearing a seatbelt? Are there other things that we should be doing rather than taking forward legislation?
Generally, you have to do a number of things, and do them repeatedly, to raise awareness and change practice. I saw the public attitude to tobacco smoke revolutionise itself during the six years of the debate on smoke-free public places. If Scotland had unlimited resources, we might be able to provide the sustained level of education and awareness raising that would be required to change culture, but my experience suggests that there would be significant media interest in the legislation and that that would give you free education and awareness raising that would cost a lot of public funds if done in any other way.
The British Heart Foundation has looked at international examples in places such as Australia and Canada where bans were introduced through legislation, and the impact was a substantial reduction in children going on car journeys. James Cant alluded to the 60,000 journeys a day that are currently being made. The scale of the problem and its impact on health prompt us to ask why we have not already done it in Scotland. We have a history of being progressive on issues such as smoking in public places, and the time has come for Scotland to act on smoking in cars. We are not talking about five or six kids a day; we are talking about 60,000 journeys. One is too many, but that number is massive and we should be acting on it.
I am not against passing legislation; I just ask whether it is necessary.
Before you bring in Richard Simpson, convener, I have another point about the adult age limit being 18, although the panel might not have a particular view. Someone can hold a driving licence at 17. If a young person of 16 is smoking in a car and there is no adult there, the legislation does not cover that. The age limit at 18 seems peculiar. Do the witnesses have a view on that?
12:45
My understanding is that 18 is generally and internationally the accepted age for child protection. With regard to children’s rights such as the right to learn to drive or whatever, the age of 16 tends to be preferred.
In Scotland, we have legislation with different provisions relating to the age of children with regard to transitions, duty of care and so on. I just wonder whether the issue needs to be looked at.
That is all about supporting children and about children’s independence and rights. The age of 18 is, I think, internationally accepted as the age for child protection.
Because of the complexity that has been mentioned, the BLF could not come to a view on a clear or definitive correct age, and our organisation is quite relaxed about what is felt in the legislation to be the most sensible cut-off point.
Does Sheila Duffy want to come back on that?
I suppose that, with regard to underage sales and so on, having a higher age limit and making the cut-off age 18 rather than 16 makes it easier to distinguish children who are younger than the limit.
That was the very point that I was going to make. People are legally allowed to purchase cigarettes at the age of 18 so, technically, 16-year-olds should not really be sitting smoking in a car—although, in reality, they probably are.
On a slightly different issue, I understand that the level of accidents that occur in cars with drivers who smoke is higher than it is for cars with non-smoking drivers. Is that the case?
It has been noted as a factor in road traffic accidents; indeed, it is probably significantly underreported as a cause of accidents. The issue might be covered by existing motoring restrictions.
As Mike MacKenzie suggested right at the start of the session, we might be on a slippery slope here—although, in this case, it slopes upwards. Why do we not just ban smoking in cars completely, given that the level of accidents that are caused by such circumstances is higher? After all, it is not good to do anything with your hands while driving apart from having them on the steering wheel, and smoking really is unnecessary. Why do we not just ban smoking in cars completely instead of taking the more reasonable route of protecting children?
For us, the bill is about protecting children, and we want to see that aim secured.
I should point out that the bill does not propose to do anything other than that.
I know, convener.
Would e-cigarettes be covered by the bill?
That proposal is not on the table, and there is not the same level of established evidence of harm that there is for tobacco smoke. That evidence is irrefutable, although I would be surprised if some of the tobacco industry representatives do not challenge it.
As members have no more questions, I thank the witnesses for their attendance. We look forward to taking this journey with you over the next few weeks and seeing what further evidence we receive.
That concludes our business for today.
Meeting closed at 12:48.Previous
NHS Boards Budget Scrutiny