Health and Sport Committee concealed evidence in petition hearing

Last Tuesday, 22 January, the Health and Sport committee took less than six minutes (180:45 minutes in) to dismiss a petition that took months to research and several exchanges of emails with helpful Petitions Committee admin staff in order to get the wording to maximum effect.

It is quite clear that the committee staff were reading off the Scottish Government script (the briefing written by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, which includes the best tobacco control fairy tales in its summary of the facts), including such beauties as the heart attack drops and similar miracles brought about excusively by smoking bans. This is what appears to have swayed them – the conviction that reducing the passive smoke exposure of workers has led to clear improvements in general public health, and the equally hard-to-believe scenario presented by Richard Simpson MSP that the argument as to whether air cleaning technology could ever be able to clean smoke from a room had been settled for all eternity in 2001.

Gil Paterson's position is patently ridiculous – admitting that ventilation improves 'every day', and yet it will never be safe to expose anyone to smoke. He also explains the government's position on passive smoke in terms of pointing out to the public that freedom doesn't mean being able to damage other people: a conclusion that is neither relevant nor illuminating in the circumstances. Claiming that smoke 'must pass by you before it gets out' is another indicator that Paterson has not noticed how far air cleaning technology has moved.

The fact is that second-hand smoke is a red herring in the air quality issue. No ventilation equipment can operate unless it meets criteria set out by OSHA and its member organisations in Europe. The criteria are based on the presence of measurable chemical compounds during eight-hour shifts, regardless of whether secondary smoke is present.

Such indoor air quality standards feature in studies by Professor Andrew Geens, who refers to recognised occupational exposure limits throughout his work. This work was submitted as evidence to the petition along with substantial additional material. This evidence was introduced at the meeting itself by Aileen McLeod MSP on behalf of F2C (Scotland) member Bill Gibson, but none of the committee wanted the opportunity to scrutinise this evidence.

They voted instead to close the petition, effectively burying the evidence.

PE 01451 closed after very brief hearing, Scottish Parliament

It looks as if I'll need another attempt to upload the video of the Health and Sport Committee meeting on Tuesday this week. In the meantime the link is here. The meeting lasts over three hours. Our petition comes in at about 180.35 minutes in.

Calling it a hearing is something of an exaggeration. One member, Aileen McLeod MSP, introduces a letter with some supplementary evidence presented to her in person by her constituent Bill Gibson, and sent to other committee members subsequently.

Gil Paterson MSP talks of his experience with the automotive industry, comparing workers in a car workshop where he describes a sealed environment and gas masks. He then opines that there will never come a time, regardless of the advances made in air cleaning technology, when the smoking ban can be repealed safely.

Richard Simpson MSP says that the ventilation issue was settled way back in 2001, recommends closing the petition and abruptly leaves the committee room leaving the convenor, Duncan McNeil MSP, to wind up in his absence.

Glancing at the sheet in front of him (no doubt the Spice briefing) regaling tales of improvements in heart attack and asthma admission rates, he concludes that the smoking ban has been of great benefit and, no one dissenting, declares the petition closed.

No scrutiny of the evidence has taken place, nor suggestions made to call expert evidence on smoking and air cleaning technology. Mr McNeil declares that the smoking ban works according to Health and Safety Executive guidelines by removing the source of the pollution rather than providing ventilation, showing that he has chosen not to consider the possibility raised in the petition – namely, that removing smoking gets rid of a single source of indoor air pollution, leaving the remainder, and making very limited difference to any toxicity in the air.

 

Petition 01451, Public Petitions Committee hearing

At some point you will be able to see it for yourself, if you didn't already see it (it will pop up here at some point: there will also be a transcript). It follows directly after a petition on treatment for congenital heart patients. If you go to boil the kettle, you might miss it: they dispose of it in under a minute. They decided to refer the petition to the Health & Sport Committee.

The clerk of the public petitions committee also replied to my email yesterday, saying:

At this stage, the Note by the Clerk is essentially just the SPICe briefing.  It will be up to the Committee to decide tomorrow what action to take on the petition and that will include from whom to seek views.

 Clearly nervous about considering the merits of a petition so opposed to the Government's preferred direction of travel that they have handed back the chalice to the Health & Sport Committee.

(There was a write-up today from Magnus Gardham at the Herald. He includes a reminder that the Scottish Government wishes to make Scotland smoke-free by 2030. He is downbeat at the prospects of the petition being successful – but I did point out to him that the public petitions committee looked set to call on tobacco-funded interests to speak in our favour.)

New government, new colours?

Not so new any more, perhaps. High hopes of less intrusive government, morph into a realisation that we [ruled from Westminster] are just going to get more of the same.

The Grocer sounds a note of optimism about the tobacco display ban (conclusion so far unannounced), on the grounds that it would make no sense to introduce a display ban and plain packaging. Well I suppose that's optimism of a sort, although it doesn't challenge the self-styled supremacy of the Department of Health too much.

In case anyone misunderstands, the Department of Health has a place and position, in ensuring the delivery of health services. Ensuring the delivery of health is the responsibility of the Almighty, and the Department of Health shouldn't interfere with it. Removing tobacco displays on the vaguest chance that it might stop people smoking is ludicrous. Even if it succeeded in its objective of stopping people from smoking (there is very little reason to suppose it will), it doesn't guarantee that people will live more healthily. There are so many ways to live unhealthily, probably varying from person to person, that the task would be impossible.

That goes for Scotland too. They really don't understand the business they are trying to regulate, nor the need to have evidence and/or relevant ideas before they get stuck in. I love this quote from the Tobacco Retailers' Alliance website:

The idea that retailers should be discouraged from selling tobacco, and encouraged to sell other things in its place, is one that keeps coming up and I expect we’ll hear a lot more of it over the next few years. I once asked an official in the Scottish Government just what exactly retailers could sell in place of tobacco – what product would bring a hundred customers through a newsagent’s door every day, give him a profit equating to four Mars Bars per transaction and drive more add-on purchases than any other product category? After a long pause for thought, she shrugged her shoulders and replied, “Apples?”

I had to check that there was actually a Cabinet Minster and government department responsible for business in Scotland. (It's John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance & Sustainable Growth.) Someone should defend business interests in government against the combined policy interests of the Cabinet Minster for Health & Wellbeing and the Minster for Public Health and Sport – if nothing else, someone should be responsible for regulating business, so that the forces behind health and wellbeing can  concentrate on health service provision, which is what we pay them for. But the Health & Sport Committee has taken the lead on regulating tobacco displays in shops. Has it really nothing better to do?

No drink ban on under 21s: SNP loses another vote on alcohol bill

A Scottish Government plan to allow local councils to raise the off-licence purchasing age to 21 has failed to gain the support of the Health & Sport Committee at the Scottish Parliament.

The proposal is itself extraordinary, as it would have the result of having different purchasing ages in different parts of the country. This carries the clear danger that young people who want to buy off-licence will travel to another district. Importantly, the presumption behind the under 21s ban is that people below 21 are more likely to be irresponsible than their elders. Also, according to Liam Burns of the National Union of Students (reported here) the local measures would not require local consultation prior to decisions and implementation.

A further compelling bonus of this decision is that it simplifies (or halts further complication of) the age of majority. Purchasing alcohol on or off-licence is allowed at 18, when people legally become adults. Making the legal age for off-licence purchasing of alcohol higher than the age of majority blurs the impact of reaching 18, which should be the age when people are considered autonomous, and able to make legal and other significant decisions about their lives. Making people aged 18 to 20 dependent upon their elders for off-sales makes nonsense of this autonomy, and discriminates against the 18–20 year age group.

Scottish Government defeated on minimum pricing

In a vote that attracted UK-wide attention, the Scottish Government has been defeated on the key issue of the Alcohol Bill, the much-discussed issue of minimum pricing. As seems to be the pattern in such highly charged issues, the votes went along party lines, with the Greens supporting the Scottish National Party in voting for minimum pricing and the Labour and Tories voting against, with only former health minister Malcolm Chisholm MSP breaking ranks.

Labour appointed a commission that reported on the issue, saying that the issue was a UK-wide one, should be based on taxation rather than minimum pricing and a ban on selling below cost. To that extent it makes sense but the Alcohol Commission has also suggested banning alcohol sponsorship and a banning alcohol at official functions. In the middle of a public financial crisis banning sponsorship is lunacy: allegations abound that sponsorship deals include cheap drink that encourages binge drinking, and there may be some truth in this but it is a moot point whether it outweighs the health benefits brought by more participation in sports.

We're not doing very well then. Neither a Scotland-only policy that sets a minimum price per 'unit' (whatever that is), nor blanket ban on alcohol companies sponsoring functions and sporting events, is likely to go very far in stopping people from drinking. As Richard Simpson MSP pointed out in the Chamber, a separate minimum pricing policy in Scotland would provide business for cross-border informal alcohol sales. And as this blogger points out, such a policy would exert the most pressure on the lowest earners, leading in some circles to a deepening spiral of crime, debt and family breakdown.

Almost more dangerous than this possibility is the one of attempting to stop sponsorship by the alcohol trade in the same way that tobacco companies have already experienced. Apart from taking money out of the economy away from areas that need investment (sport, for example), this option marginalises the whole industry. The government should instead demand input from the alcohol industry into policy recommendations: who understands the alcohol trade like them that produce it? This is the approach suggested by The International Coalition Against Prohibition in their reply to last year's consultation on the issue. (TICAP also promotes the Brussels Declaration on Scientific Integrity, which points out that moderate consumption of alcohol has health benefits and prohibition thus not a sensible health policy option.)

In broad terms, although I haven't absorbed enough detail so far, it seems much better to allow the alcohol industry full participation in drink damage limitation exercises, than to allow government health departments full authority in this area. Sure, the Health and Sport Committee can run about managing the tobacco and alcohol industries but is that its job? Input is one thing, but it is surely not appropriate that the Health and Sport Committee leads on the detailed regulation of a trade issue.

The Scottish Government's report in 2007, Better Care, Better Health (a jumbled sandwich with direct discussion of public health priorities in the middle) seems 90 per cent concerned with health service management and targets. The page featuring the Health and Sport Committee on the Scottish Parliament website reflects a similar preoccupation with Health Service management, and its recent reports, listed at the bottom of the page, don't cover sport at all. Wouldn't it be better for alcohol and tobacco to be regulated by industry and trade department officials (admittedly a problem in post-devolutionary Scotland) than by a health department with too much on its plate already? (and is there any commitment to youth sport?)

Minimum pricing is off the agenda at any rate: it remains to be seen what will replace it, as May 2011 is just a few months away.

Official In Scotland Too: The smoking ban did it

Press reports abound yesterday and today of the 737 pubs that have closed in Scotland since the smoking ban was implemented on 26 March 2006. For once the story (in the form of a report for the Save our Pubs and Clubs Campaign) says that the smoking ban is to blame for these closures.

Predictably the response has come that the story has much to do with supermarket prices, property prices, changing habits and anything else but the smoking ban. (Actually I think it fair to say that the legislation was brought in because in spite of a 30-year decline in smoking rates, change was not happening fast enough for those who wanted to bring smoking rates down.)

Of course the trading situation is difficult for the pubs, but the point is that the smoking ban changed pubs from an ideal meeting place for people who wanted to meet friends, colleagues and family for a drink and a chat, to an irrelevance. Smokers made up a larger proportion of pub customers than of the general population. An attack on smokers was bound to hurt the trade (and a significant proportion of cafeterias). The people who wrote the report have been accused of being apologists for the tobacco industry, but it doesn't take tobacco funding to tell you that a smoking ban will put smokers off. In areas and among groups of friends where almost everyone smokes (and some pubs will tell you that nine-tenths of their customers smoke) it just seems more trouble than it's worth to have to keep going outside to smoke.

THE SOLUTION?

Freedom to Choose (Scotland) Chairman Eddie Douthwaite was quoted in the STV version of the story as follows:

Eddie Douthwaite of Freedom to Choose (Scotland) believes that modern air filtration methods mean that the smoking ban should be amended.

He said: "Modern air filtration technology is a far cry from the 'ventilation' considered unable to extract toxins or particulate matter from the air when the introduction of a smoking ban was debated in 2005.  

"These air filtration products are currently fitted in aircraft and in hospitals, where they can remove particulate contamination together with airborne viruses, spores, and bacteria. Their use in the hospitality industry as an alternative to smoking bans is surely a step in the right direction especially as the indoor air quality would be far better than the air outdoors.

 "The Scottish Government should accept that new technology has provided a solution that could eliminate any need for this socially divisive and economically disastrous smoking ban."

HISTORY OF THE CAMPAIGN
Freedom to Choose (Scotland) submitted a petition in 2007 to the Scottish Parliament calling for a review of the smoking ban, and the introduction of Regulated Indoor Air Quality Standards. Such a standard would require the use of air-cleaning equipment if air quality did not meet specific standards, and would cover airborne pollution from any source.

In essence the Scottish Parliament agreed to close the petition and to bring its concerns to any future post-legislative scrutiny of the legislation. (The petition was considered jointly with another petition on the smoking ban from the CISWO (Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation) club in Glenrothes, calling for designated smoking rooms to be allowed – their evidence included trading figures from licensed clubs in the area.)

These are the terms in which the case was effectively dismissed by the Health & Sport Committee.

Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act 2005 (PE1037 and PE1042)

Dr Simpson: ...I have just one comment on air pollution. It is interesting that when Kenny Gibson and I made the original proposal for a bill to ban smoking in pubs and restaurants, which was rejected by the health minister at the time, the alternative to such a ban was the installation in premises of air filtration and anti-pollution systems. We now know from information that was provided as a result of freedom of information requests to the tobacco companies in America that such systems do not filter carcinogens from the air. I put on record the fact that, as we tackle smoking problems in the future, we will again face one of the most powerful global industries, so we should be extremely careful not to be duped into taking voluntary measures to curtail smoking that could subsequently be circumvented by the tobacco industry.

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): It is important to consider all the issues in detail. That is why I agree that when post-legislative scrutiny of the 2005 act is undertaken, consideration of the issues that the petitions raise should be right up there with consideration of the other impacts of the smoking ban. It is right and proper for consideration of such matters to feed into that scrutiny.

The Convener: Without prejudging the post-legislative scrutiny, I think that it would be appropriate for the issues that the petitions raise to be considered along with other issues, such as the impact of the ban on businesses. Are members content with that approach? [my emphasis]

THERE HAS BEEN NO POST LEGISLATIVE SCRUTINY TO DATE ON THIS SUBJECT. In the meantime the Scottish Government has steam-rollered on with more jewels from the tobacco control agenda, such as the tobacco display ban. 

An example of suitable equipment for tackling irritants in smoke is Air Manager, a link obtained from a government web site. It can take out particles down to 0.01 micron and 99.9 per cent of bacteria, spores and viruses. It takes out not only smoke but the rest of the muck too. 

Thankfully at least STV has been able to recognise that people should know that there is a viable alternative to the smoking ban.