Bye bye Brabin - smoking Bill MP swaps Westminster for West Yorkshire
If the name of the first first metro mayor of West Yorkshire rings a bell with readers it might have something to do with a post I wrote in March 2019:
Today sees the second reading of the Smoking Prohibition (National Health Service Premises) Bill.
It's a private members' bill proposed by Labour MP Tracy Brabin and few people expect it to become law.
Sometimes however what begins as a backbench initiative - even by an Opposition MP - develops legs and is adopted by government.
Anyway, Brabin was interviewed on BBC Look North on Wednesday and we might have gone head-to-head had I not been driving back from Cardiff. (I was asked if I was available but I wasn’t.)
The programme is no longer online but my comment that banning smoking on hospital grounds is “inhumane” was put to her and she did appear a bit uncomfortable.
'Dear Tracy Brabin' also included the full text of an email I sent the Labour MP for Batley and Spen.
At the end I wrote:
Finally, can I draw your attention to the remarkable incident at Hull Royal Infirmary, reported by BBC Look North yesterday (on which you were interviewed). Incredibly, despite it not being illegal to smoke on hospital grounds, the police were apparently called to escort a smoker off the premises. How can that possibly be considered a productive use of police time?
Unfortunately, should your bill become law, the police could regularly be called to investigate such ‘offences’ with the result that otherwise law-abiding people could find themselves in court charged with the ‘crime’ of smoking in the open air where they are harming no-one but (possibly) themselves.
I do hope you will take these points into consideration before proceeding with your bill.
I'm not claiming any credit because Brabin's Bill had very little chance of advancing much further, but I've always wanted to know why its progress stalled.
After receiving its first reading on January 29, 2019, the second reading was initially scheduled for March 15, then postponed to March 21.
Not only did the second reading never take place, the bill was never mentioned again, not even by its proposer.
Two years later the former Coronation Street actress is in charge of one of the largest regions in the country with a budget said to exceed that of Greater Manchester where Andy Burnham – tipped to be the next Labour leader – was re-elected mayor with a big majority.
Burnham, a former secretary of state for health, is of course backing the campaign to make smoking history in Greater Manchester.
Whether Brabin adopts a similar stance in West Yorkshire remains to be seen. I hope not because I rather like her.
Unlike many MPs she seems to have a sense of humour and doesn’t take herself too seriously.
Nevertheless we’ll need to keep an eye on things because it’s in the regions (metropolitan areas as well as devolved nations) that anti-smoking initiatives often start.
But that’s another story for another post.