SMOKING DEBATE SETTLED

by RAY FLEMING
THEY were quickly able to agree to go to war with Iraq in 2003. But earlier this week the members of the British Cabinet were unable to agree, despite long discussion, on a no-smoking policy. Mr Jack Straw, who chaired these Cabinet meetings, had only recently been able to knock heads together in the European Union on the tricky issue of Turkish membership, but could not get the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, and her predecessor, John Reid, to settle their differences about smoking in pubs and clubs. There are no prizes for guessing who saw the damage that this disunity was doing to the government's image and told the quarrelling children to stop. So yesterday, suddenly and without a meeting, it was announced that ministers had agreed plans for a ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces throughout England, except for clubs and pubs not serving food. The new legislation will therefore follow the pledge set out in the Labour manifesto at the last election. The outcome is a defeat for Ms Hewitt who wanted to go further than that pledge and introduce a ban across the board; the promise of a review of the policy after three years is a sop to her but not much more than that. Mr Reid, a former three-packs-a-day man, is the winner as he sees an acceptance of the proposals he made when at the Department of Health to safeguard the freedom of the individual to smoke in conditions that do not affect others. Beyond the issue of whether the exceptions from the ban will prove to be workable is the perhaps more interesting question of whether in these disagreements we are witnessing a breakdown in Cabinet discipline as ministers begin to think that Mr Blair's powers of preferment may be diminishing. Last week's reports of protests from John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, over some of the provisions of the new schools policy being pushed through by Mr Blair also suggested that the unity of the government may be fracturing slightly. During a recent visit to Dublin I saw crowds of smokers drinking and smoking on the pavements outside pubs following the total ban on smoking introduced there. The weather was mild, but where will they go in winter?