Smoking ban in pub gardens and outdoor venues being considered due to ‘huge burden’ on NHS, Starmer says
A ban on smoking in pub gardens and other outdoor venues is being considered because of the “huge burden” smoking puts on the NHS and the taxpayer, Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed.
The prime minister said ministers were looking at banning smoking in other places too, including outdoor restaurants and outside sports venues, hospitals, nightclubs and in some small parks.
Sir Keir confirmed the proposal on Thursday following a leaked report seen by The Sun newspaper.
He said: “My starting point on this is to remind everyone that over 80,000 people lose their lives every year to smoking, that’s a preventable death, it’s a huge burden on the NHS and of course on the taxpayer.
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Smoking ban in pub gardens and outdoor venues being considered, says PM
“So, yes we are going to take decisions in this space. More details will be revealed but this is a preventable cause of deaths and we’ve got to take the action to reduce the burden on the NHS and reduce the burden on the taxpayer.”
The plan has been welcomed by health campaigners who believe the measure would help protect people from the dangers of second-hand smoke.
But the proposal has drawn heavy criticism from others, with accusations of the government imposing on people’s freedoms and being the “final nail in the coffin” of the hospitality industry.
The prime minister was asked about possible smoking bans while on a visit to France. Pic: PA
Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, said: “This raises the critical question: Are we on the brink of becoming a nanny state? What is next?
“While these measures may rightly be driven by public health considerations, they risk dividing opinion and imposing yet another regulatory burden on businesses already facing considerable challenges.
“At a time when our industry desperately needs the freedom to trade, the last thing we need is further barriers.”
Mr Kill said many of the 6.4 million people who smoke in the UK “enjoy doing so in social settings like beer gardens”.
“We must question whether such an approach is truly in the public interest, or whether it risks over-regulation at the cost of personal freedom and business viability,” he added.
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Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said a ban could cause “serious economic harm to hospitality venues” as she cited the “significant” number of pub closures after smoking was banned indoors in 2007 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 2006 in Scotland.
She said it would also affect hotels, cafes and restaurants and called on the government to talk to the hospitality industry before any laws are passed.
“It must also assess whether such a ban would achieve its aims of meaningfully reducing smoking or simply relocate smoking elsewhere, such as in the home,” she added.
A number of Conservative MPs also spoke out against the plan, despite their own plans to curb smoking for younger people, with shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins posting on X: “We want to protect our children from taking up smoking and vaping. Our smoke-free generation legislation was designed to do that.
“Stopping adults from smoking in the open air, however, was not part of our plans. Labour is putting our hospitality sector at risk in the process.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage also told one newspaper he would “never go to the pub again if outdoor smoking was banned”.
But the chief executive of Action on Smoking Health (ASH) Deborah Arnott said: “The priority is to get the bill back in parliament and put on the statute book, to end smoking for the next generation and curb youth vaping.
“ASH would support the inclusion of powers to extend smoke-free laws outdoors, subject to consultation.”
“However, it’s also important to ensure that there are still outdoor areas where people who smoke can smoke in the open air, rather than inside their homes.”
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A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaks.
“Smoking claims 80,000 lives a year, puts huge pressure on our NHS, and costs taxpayers billions.
“We are determined to protect children and non-smokers from the harms of second-hand smoking.
“We’re considering a range of measures to finally make Britain smoke-free.”
A smoking ban inside of pubs and other enclosed public spaces and work places was brought in by Labour in 2007.
According to ASH, in the year after the new law was imposed, there was a 2.4% reduction in hospital admissions for heart attacks and a 12.3% reduction in hospital admissions for childhood asthma.
Rishi Sunak after he led his party to a landslide election defeat. Pic: PA
This Labour government has previously said it would resurrect Rishi Sunak’s flagship smoking ban, which was shelved before the election.
The King’s speech at July’s opening of Parliament promised to reintroduce the legislation to increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes progressively.
Under the proposed smoking ban, a 14-year-old today will never legally be able to buy a cigarette.
In the speech, Labour also laid out plans to impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes.
Temperatures in a hamlet in northern Scotland fell to -18.7C (-1.66F) overnight – the UK’s coldest January night in 15 years, the Met Office has said.
Altnaharra, in the northern region of the Highlands, reached the lowest temperature while nearby Kinbrace reached -17.9C (-0.22F).
It is the coldest January overnight temperature since 2010, when temperatures dropped below -15C several times at locations across the UK, including -22.3C (-8.14F) on 8 January in Altnaharra.
Forecasters had previously said there was a very small probability it could reach -19C.
A Highland cow grazing near Shotts, North Lanarkshire. Pic: PA
Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin said: “Friday night into Saturday morning may well be the nadir of this current cold spell.”
Temperatures for large parts of the UK are set to fall again as the cold weather continues.
St Andrew’s church at Kiln Pit in Durham. Pic: PA
Met Office meteorologist Zoe Hutin said: “We’ve still got tonight to come, and tomorrow (Saturday) night could also be chilly as well.
“Temperatures for tomorrow night, it will be mainly eastern parts that see temperatures dropping widely below freezing, so East Anglia, the northeast of England, northern and eastern Scotland as well.
“So another chilly night to come on Saturday, but then as we go into Sunday and into Monday, then we can start to expect temperatures to recover somewhat.
“I won’t rule out the risk of seeing something around or just below freezing again on Sunday night into Monday, but it won’t be quite so dramatic as the temperatures that we’re going to experience as we go overnight tonight.”
Skating on a frozen flooded field in Upware, Cambridgeshire. Pic: PA
On Monday, temperatures are expected to be more in line with the seasonal norm, at about 7C to 8C.
A family walk across Hothfield Common in frosty conditions near Ashford in Kent. Pic: PA
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The freezing conditions have led to travel disruption, with Manchester Airport closing both its runways on Thursday morning because of “significant levels of snow”. They were later reopened.
Transport for Wales closed some railway lines because of damage to tracks.
Hundreds of schools in Scotland and about 90 in Wales were shut on Thursday.
Meanwhile, staff and customers at a pub thought to be Britain’s highest were finally able to leave on Thursday after being snowed in.
The Tan Hill Inn in Richmond, North Yorkshire, is 1,732 feet (528m) above sea level.
Six staff and 23 visitors were stuck, the pub said on Facebook.
Pressure on hospitals is particularly high this winter, with more than a dozen declaring critical incidents in recent days.
Hospitals struggle every winter with additional pressures due to the impact of cold weather, but the early arrival of flu this season and high volume of cases meant Christmas and New Year’s weeks were even busier than usual.
There are currently at least 20 hospitals that have declared critical incidents in England, although this is a fast-moving picture, and some trusts will go into critical incident for as little as half an hour.
The latest NHS winter situation reports give a more detailed look at the level of pressure experienced by individual trusts, including those with the worst ambulance handover delays and highest levels of flu patients.
Ambulance handover delays
When a patient arrives at a hospital in an ambulance, clinical guidelines suggest that it should take no longer than 15 minutes to transfer them into emergency care.
It is now common for handovers to regularly exceed this timeframe, however, when emergency departments are overcrowded and lack the capacity to keep up with new patient arrivals.
This is risky for patients because it delays their assessment and treatment by clinicians, and also reduces the availability of ambulances to respond to new incidents.
The trust with the longest delays was University Hospitals Plymouth, with an average handover time of three hours and 33 minutes over the week – two hours and 40 minutes longer than the average for England. It also recorded the longest average handover times for a single day, at five hours and 14 minutes on New Year’s Day.
Use the table below to search for local ambulance handover times:
On 7 January, University Hospitals Plymouth declared a critical incident at Derriford Hospital due to “significant and rising demand for hospital care”, though this has since been stood down.
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust had an average ambulance handover time of three hours and 15 minutes, increasing by more than an hour from one hour and 51 minutes the week before.
In Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, 83% of handovers took more than 30 minutes, the highest share among areas dealing with more than five ambulance arrivals per day.
This area also recently declared and then stood down a critical incident.
In total across England, 43 trusts out of 127 had average handover times of more than an hour, while nine areas had average handover times of more than two hours.
Flu
This winter’s flu wave arrived earlier than usual and has hit health services hard.
Over New Year’s week, there were 5,407 flu patients in hospitals in England on average each day, more than three times higher than during the same week last year and increasing by 20% from the week before.
The worst impacted trusts were Northumbria Healthcare and University Hospitals Birmingham, with 15% and 13% of all available beds occupied by flu patients respectively in the latest week.
Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust had among the biggest increase in flu patients from the previous week, more than doubling from 18 to 42 patients per day on average.
Use the table below to search for local flu hospitalisations:
There are some indications that flu activity may have now peaked, with national flu surveillance showing a decrease in positive flu tests in the latest week, though activity remains at high levels.
Bed occupancy
Current NHS guidance is that a maximum of 92% of hospital beds should be occupied to reduce negative risks associated with overfilled beds.
These risks include the impact on patient flow resulting from it being more difficult to find beds for patients, and negative impacts on performance and waiting times, as well as being linked to increased infection rates.
In the week to 5 January, 92.8% of 102,546 open hospital beds were available each day on average, not far off the recommended level.
However, bed occupancy was very high in some trusts, with more than 95% of beds occupied in 43 trusts on average over the week.
The trust with the highest rate of bed occupancy was Wye Valley NHS Trust, with 99.9% of 332 beds occupied on average throughout the week.
There was only one day when beds weren’t fully occupied, on 3 January, when two beds of 322 were available.
Use the table below to search for local bed occupancy:
Kettering General Hospital NHS Trust recorded bed occupancy of 98.5% over the week. This trust declared a critical incident on 8 January.
Part of the problem for bed availability is prolonged hospital stays – also known as bed-blocking.
This is often linked to pressures in other parts of the health and social care system, for example when patients can’t be discharged to appropriate social care providers even though they are ready to leave hospital.
Just under half of beds occupied by patients in English hospitals last week were occupied by long-stay patients who had been there for seven or more days.
In seven trusts, at least three in five beds were occupied by long-stay patients, while in Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust the figure was more than four in five beds.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
The government contract for the controversial asylum barge in Dorset has ended.
The last asylum seekers are believed to have left Bibby Stockholm at the end of November after Labour said it would have cost more than £20m to run in 2025.
Its closure this month was expected, and on Friday the management firm and the Home Office confirmed to Sky News the contract had now expired.
It’s currently unclear when Bibby Stockholm will leave Portland and what it will be used for next.
The Conservative government started using the vessel in August 2023.
It said putting nearly 500 men on board while they waited for an asylum decision was cheaper than paying for hotel rooms.
However, it was controversial from the start and sparked legal challenges and protests.
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August: 2023: Barge reminds migrant of Islamic State
Days after the first group boarded there was an outbreak of Legionella bacteria in the water system and it had to be evacuated for two months.
In December 2023, an Albanian asylum seeker, Leonard Farruku, died on board.
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A Home Office spokesperson said the government was determined to reform the asylum system to make it operate “swiftly, firmly and fairly”.
“This includes our accommodation sites, as we continue to identify a range of options to reduce the use of hotels,” the new statement added.
“We are already closing some hotels and will continue to engage with local authorities and key stakeholders as part of this process.”
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