UK Smoking Ban Policy: Arguments, Development, Critique & Debates

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the UK smoking ban implemented in 2007, examining the problem it aimed to address, the policy's introduction, and arguments in its favor. It traces the policy's development, including criticisms and debates surrounding its success. The essay highlights the ban's positive impacts, such as reduced hospital admissions for heart attacks and improved air quality, while also addressing concerns about potential negative consequences for pubs. It further explores the long-term effects on smoking rates, particularly among young people, and concludes by acknowledging the global trend toward anti-smoking legislation. Desklib offers this essay along with a wealth of study resources for students.

Smoking ban in UK

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Identification of problem.............................................................................................................3
Introduction of policy..................................................................................................................4
Arguments in the favour of the policy.........................................................................................4
Tracing policy development........................................................................................................5
Critique of the policy...................................................................................................................6
Debates concerning the success of the policy..............................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Smoking bans are public policies, that has been created due to the safety and health
regulations that are prohibited the consumption of tobacco in the form of smoking methods. In
UK smoking ban was fights established partially in 2007 in a series of film to discourage people
from smoking. On 1st July 2007 it was illegal to smoke in pubs, restaurant, nightclub and other
workplaces. This was due to the influence of the smoking ban on March 2006. This policy was
introduced due to the consequence of a long campaign which started in the 1950s and
demonstrated with the connection between the smoking and lung cancer. In this review of the
commission that was helpful for the department of health on impacting the smoking ban that was
suggested as a result of changes and attitudes. In this project the introduction of the different
policies related to the smoking ban was considered. This project will be providing arguments in
the favour of the policy. This project was able to state the arguments that were presented in the
favour of the policy. In this project tracing of the policy development will be presented policy.
This project will also present a critique of the policy and explain whether it was successful or
not. For this project a presentation of the debates regarding the success of policy and rationale of
the policy in the first place was included with the help of strategical arguments. In the end of this
project the debate between the whether smoking ban should be presented or not has been
concluded.
MAIN BODY
Identification of problem
The problem due to which the smoking ban policy of 2007 was implemented was that
prior to the ban there were many researches which was linked passive smoking to health issues
(El Ansari and Salam, 2021). There were studies which showed that the breathing in the second
hand smoke increased the adults which were non-smoker's risk to the lung cancer, heart diseases
and stroke with 30%. The people breathing smoke is also harmful for the children because their
lungs are in the stage of development and was able to cause high risk of respiratory infections
such as, asthma, bacterial infection and death. This band of smoking at the public places hence
was on the biggest public intervention that was planned in UK.

Introduction of policy
In the year of 2007 the British Government passed a law which made it illegal for people
to smoke in an enclosed public places. This was to ensure that the individuals might utilize
training station to eat in restaurant or shop without having to suffer any negative effects of
second hand smoking. Website's aim was to provide utilization of information or laws
surrounding smoking tobacco cigarettes and liquids and explaining how the individuals may help
in keeping UK smoke free for everyone. This ban was the result of a very long campaign that
reviewed the impact of smoking ban was the department of health. A very strong link was found
between the smoking and lung cancer. Due to this ban the review commissioned found that it has
resulted in the changes in the attitudes and behaviour. The positive aspect of this ban that was
found that the indirect smoke exposure in children fell and in the hospital's admission for heart
attack also dropped significantly.
Arguments in the favour of the policy
As this policy was planned for the welfare of the public it was able to provide more
positive results rather than negative ones that would have impacted the success. This has been
considered to be the legislation that more and more people were trying to quit smoking and more
people succeeded because of having an easier way of avoiding situations (Ng and Smyth, 2020).
The research was also able to explain how effective this policy was considered to be effective as
the hospitals experienced 1200 less hospital admission for heart attacks. This ban is considered
to be very effective for improving the quality of air and as a result of that the fewer smokers
were left in the society. The survey of 2006 explained that 22 % of the adults smoked in UK.
However, the survey of 2015 explained that only 18% of the individuals were smokers (Smoking
ban in England, 2007). This was the first time that the government was able to find a gradual
decline in the number of smokers since 1974.
UK bars before this ban were only known for the cigarette smoke which was twice as
unhealthy in comparison to inhaling the smoke outside. Hence, this ban was considered to be
very effective for the managing the conditions of the environment. The management of the ban
was considered to be the factor that allowed in the reduction of the air pollution of the UK bars
that was reduced to 93%. However, the concern of the people which can go to the pub and smoke
will smoke at home in front of the children increased. But, the reality to this was completely
opposite as majority children in UK lived in a smoke-free environment (Pryce, 2019). There was

a study that showed that before the implementation of this policy the figure of hospitals
admission of children suffering from asthma was high on an average of five percent each year in
Scotland.
As the part of implementation of this policy the transport in London also announced then
that there will not be smoking allowed in any public transport. This was very good for the public
which were non-smokers as they did not have to face any issues of suffering from the air
pollution caused by the smokers. This was also very important for the safety against the fire
hazard that can be a part of smoking in the car.
Tracing policy development
The development of this policy began in 2005 when in the public health white paper
report it was proposed for a smoking ban in all public places of England and Wales. This then
later resulted in ban of smoking in NHS and government premises which enclosed public places
in 2007. This policy then was formed that banned smoking in encapsulated public places by 2007
and in restaurants by the end of 2008. During the development of this policy many things were
considered before it implementation. However, a there were many criticisms to this policy with a
number of MPs threatening to try to overturn the bill (Robinson, Sweeting and Hunt, 2018).
There were ideas that a total ban needs to be implemented on smoking. This policy took a lot of
time get implemented as it was not getting the majority support. It was then reported that a
partial ban of the smoking was decided for staying on top of the champion. On the same day the
UK government released this policy after the public consultations after the cancer research in UK
demanded them under the Freedom for information Act.
Further it was announced by the MPs that there will be voting the amendment of health
bill. The was done for instigating the comprehensive smoke-free workplace regulations. This was
considered to be voted in favour of amendment that was done for voting against the own
department that publicly stated policy. Then there was majority vote in the favour of the policy
(Pub smoking ban: 10 charts that show the impact, 2017). However, some parties also offered
votes for the application of that debated on three choices that were present in the compromise, a
total ban and exempting for members only. It was considered to be carried with a large majority
and this correction gained an important amount of activity and was carried with a big number.
Due to many researches and reports that were coming out in public during this period the

regarding the harmful effects of smoking (Anyanwu and et.al., 2018). The government bodies
were forced to take action and implement this policy in action.
Critique of the policy
The public health that was published was the publishing of white paper that was helpful
for making choices easier. During the implementation of this policy the pubs in UK were full of
smoke and reason for accumulated on the streets right the offices. After the banning of smoking
all the encapsulated public places and work places came into force on July 2007. This hence
resulted in the taking dip over the previous 18 months. The impacts of this policy can be
critically analysed with the following,
The country fell into line :
This policy during its implementation was a very controversial decisions taken by the
organization. This health lobby found that due to decade of getting introduced to the last minute
ministers were known to be the all types of exceptions. Retaining breathing rooms for allowing a
positive premises can be exempted were resulted in the introduction of the country soon falling
into line for the councils before charging the policy (Dugdale and et.al., 2018). During the first
18 months of implementation of this policy officers were able to find that more than 600000
promises broke the rules that were presented. Soon there were protests against the ban and 12%
of the people wanted to get rid of it.
Pubs took major Hit :
The number of pubs in UK started to fall and between 2007 and 2015 due to the loss
their business started to face. This was the result of the shut down of the 7000 pubs. In certain
publications and all other critics have been said that the smoking ban might have played a very
important role in large part of this simon Clark of the smokers. The smokers in the lobby group
forest said hat the impact of that happened was very devastating. There were other factors that
has been the result of a very massive declination in the amount of beer drank by the people. Beer
duty increased by 42% which had negative impacts on the society. During the time when this ban
was introduced in the country there was an economic crash. It was able to massive impact on
incomes in the UK. It played a very important role of real-terms. Since then the pubs have to
adapt to new foods and these people will be able to be a good fit.
There are fewer smokers :

After this policy the smoking rates fell a lot. At present there are less that 17% people in
UK which smoke. This shows a downward trend in actually slowing of the rate of decline
immediately after the ban. The experts believed this as understandable as the most people that
smoked was due to the influence of others. Hence, not having the right to smoke publically
reduced the desire of the individuals towards smoking (Hiscock and et.al., 2020).
Young people were turned off smoking :
Younger people gave up smoking after the introduction of the ban in public places.
However, it was seen that the rates of drinking, drug use and teenage pregnancy numbers fell in
the young people at the same time. Hence, it has been believed that this change in the young
people are more towards the ways they behave in comparison to the impact of the policy. This
consistent trend was able to explain that the fewer convincing was required in the theory for
explaining the idea of the young people that spend so much of their time online.
Debates concerning the success of the policy
It can be said that for the past 10 years the global trend towards the anti-smoking
legislation has grown very significantly. Similar policies were taken by other nations against the
smoking. The ban of tobacco in UK then displayed in shops have been introduced while
cigarettes now which was sold in standardization packages and smoking for allowing in cars
carrying children. The age at which the people were able to buy tobacco products has been raised
from 16 to 18. Health concerns that were there due to the smoking practices in UK was the factor
that was responsible for the negative impacts that was implementation of the standardized
packages and smoking is allowed for carrying children. In UK some towns took their own
measures for banning the smoking practices that was for the standardization of the packaging and
smoking for allowing the cars to carry the children. (Larsson and et.al., 2020). It was very
common thing that was identified that the banning smoking in public places also resulted in
people cloth's smelling after a night out.
As per a survey it was found that 6 out of 10 people agreed with the health of hospitality
workers and were able to improve almost 4 out of 10 said that their own health has also been
benefited from the reduction of exposure to the second hand smoke. In a similar survey 20% of
the smokers said that the ban had helped them to cut down the number of cigarettes that they
smoked and had amazing 14% of the ex smokers recognition the ban allowed them to quit
altogether. In addition to all this additional measures were taken for the introduction this ban for

protecting the next generation from giving up smoking. These measures which were taken were
the increasing of the taxes, placing the tobacco out in the shops. This helped in getting rid of
cigarettes vending machines.
There were people which were related to the pubs that got closed due to the ban of
smoking which were against the policy. This people said that the human rights consideration was
to allow a person to do what they wish in order to influence the health outcomes. This in-fact
was the considered to be the remains for taking less time for the impact of decreased smoking
rates for influencing the health outcomes. These people protested against the smoking ban policy
and want it to get lifted. However, their efforts went into vein because of the lack of majority in
their numbers. Sooner rather than later majority of these people turned into the supporters for this
policy due to the consideration of the health impacts it created.
CONCLUSION
With the help of this project it can be concluded that the Smoking ban policy of 2007 for
banning smoking in public areas was a very successful policy that was introduced in UK. In this
project the problem due to which the government was forced to introduce this policy has been
elaborated. In this project the policy has been introduced to the company and has been able to
provide the business with a huge detail about the forces that bring growth to the business. This is
the policy that provided the state the arguments that presented the favour of the policy. This was
helpful for the business to trace policy for the development of the business if it was applicable. In
this project the policy was presented in the debate of whether it was effective or not. Debate on
the viability of the policy has been main for providing a conclusion to the project.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
El Ansari, W. and Salam, A., 2021. Prevalence and predictors of smoking, quit attempts and
total smoking ban at the University of Turku, Finland. Central European Journal of
Public Health. 29(1). pp.45-55.
Ng, C. and Smyth, A.R., 2020. Smoking ban in cars protects children, but is vaping ‘The
Elephant in the Car’?. Thorax. 75(4). pp.297-297.
Pryce, R., 2019. The effect of the United Kingdom smoking ban on alcohol spending: Evidence
from the Living Costs and Food Survey. Health Policy. 123(10). pp.936-940.
Robinson, A., Sweeting, H. and Hunt, K., 2018. UK news media representations of smoking,
smoking policies and tobacco bans in prisons. Tobacco control. 27(6). pp.622-630.
Anyanwu, P.E., and et.al., 2018. Impacts of smoke-free public places legislation on inequalities
in youth smoking uptake: study protocol for a secondary analysis of UK survey
data. BMJ open. 8(3). p.e022490.
Dugdale, S., and et.al., 2018. Breaking free from smoking: a novel digital smoking cessation
intervention for offenders in UK prisons. Journal of Smoking Cessation. 13(4). pp.189-
200.
Hiscock, R., and et.al., 2020. Tobacco industry tactics to circumvent and undermine the menthol
cigarette ban in the UK. Tobacco Control. 29(e1). pp.e138-e142.
Larsson, S.C., and et.al., 2020. Smoking, alcohol consumption, and cancer: A mendelian
randomisation study in UK Biobank and international genetic consortia participants.
PLoS medicine. 17(7). p.e1003178.
Online
Pub smoking ban: 10 charts that show the impact, 2017[Online]. Available through:
<https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40444460>
Smoking ban in England, 2007[Online]. Available through:
<https://navigator.health.org.uk/theme/smoking-ban-england>