BMJ  2006;332:1349 (10 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7554.1349-a

News

Ban on smoking in public places "disproportionate to the problem"

London

New legislation that bans smoking in public places in England, which is due to reach the final stages of voting in the House of Lords later this month, is unjustified and an over-reaction to the scientific evidence on passive smoking, says a House of Lords report.

The impact of passive smoking in public places is a relatively minor problem compared with passive smoking in the home, says the House of Lords' economic affairs committee. It concludes, "Failure to consider these matters properly has resulted in the introduction of a policy that appears to demonstrate a disproportionate response to the problem."

The committee conducted an inquiry into government policy on the management of risk after a speech by the prime minister, Tony Blair, in May 2005, in which he suggested that British society was becoming increasingly risk averse. The attitude towards risk, which Mr Blair claimed was leading to a compensation culture and an unbalanced view of activities such as school trips and leisure facilities, was putting pressure on policy makers to "eliminate risk in a way that is out of all proportion to the potential damage," he said.

But the inquiry found no evidence that society was becoming more risk averse. In fact, the committee questioned whether it was possible to measure risk aversion to back up the view that has been proposed by the government.

In its report, the committee argues that threats to liberty are not adequately considered when new policies are developed. It calls for a more formal procedure to ensure that the potential impact of legislation on personal freedoms is properly thought out.

Although the government has a framework for assessing the risk, there are problems with how it is applied. The reward and assessment systems in the public sector may emphasise the adverse impact of failure rather than the gains from success, so encouraging excessive risk aversion, says the report.

The committee looked at two specific cases, the legislation to ban smoking in public places and the levels of expenditure on rail and road safety.

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Longer versions of these articles are on bmj.com

The report, Government Policy on the Management of Risk, is available at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldeconaf.htm.

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