Labour and the decline of the British pub

Only Labour will end the decline of British pubs, declared a Labour Party tweet today.

I know all political parties are guilty of hypocrisy but this takes the biscuit.

I’m sure that readers don’t need to be reminded that it was the last Labour government that introduced the workplace smoking ban in England.

Likewise, it was devolved Labour administrations that introduced the policy in Scotland and Wales.

But you may have forgotten the facts concerning the impact the ban had on pubs across Britain.

Ten years after the introduction of the smoking ban in England, Forest commissioned and published a report by Rob Lyons entitled, ‘Road To Ruin? The impact of the smoking ban on pubs and personal choice’.

On June 26, 2017, we issued a press release that began:

The smoking ban decimated England’s pubs and hurt local communities, according to a report published today.

New figures obtained by the smokers’ group Forest show there are 11,383 fewer pubs in England compared to 2006, a decline of 20.7 per cent since the smoking ban was introduced on 1st July 2007.

London alone has 2,034 fewer pubs than in 2006, North West England has lost 1,788, Yorkshire is down by 1,589 and the South East has a net loss of 1,013.

But the biggest decline in pub numbers has been in the Midlands where there are 2,560 fewer pubs than before the smoking ban, a drop of 23.7 per cent.

While the fall in the number of pubs is part of a long-term trend and is not solely down to the smoking ban, the report found there was a clear acceleration in pub closures after the ban was enforced, with pubs in poorer urban areas suffering most.

The figures, which were obtained from research specialists CGA Strategy, confirmed what we had known for a long time, and it wasn’t just pubs in England that suffered as a result of the ban.

In September 2010 research carried out by CR Consulting on behalf of Forest’s Save Our Pubs & Clubs campaign found that the smoking ban was the main cause of pub closures throughout the UK in the aftermath of the ban:

Using information from a respected industry database, researchers found that the number of pub losses demonstrate a very close statistical relationship between the introduction of smoking bans and the acceleration of the decline of the British pub.

This relationship, says the report, is considerably stronger than those that could be attributed to other factors such as the recession, alcohol duty or supermarket competition.

According to the report:

Researchers found a striking similarity in the rate of closures in Scotland, England and Wales following the introduction of smoking bans in each country.

While there is significant variation in the trajectories of pub closures in each country before the ban, there is an almost total correlation between the three countries after the ban.

This indicates that they are affected by a strong common factor - the smoking ban. The correlation is in fact so close that the trend line for the three countries is identical.

Commenting on the research, Oliver Griffiths, director of CR Consulting, said:

“The decline of the British pub had started before the smoking ban but at a relatively low level. The smoking ban had a sudden and marked impact, accelerating the rate of decline.

“While it is not the only factor, the smoking ban is demonstrably the most significant cause of pub closures in recent years.”

To be clear, workplace smoking bans in Scotland, Wales and England were introduced by Labour governments.

Despite this the UK Labour Party would have us believe that ‘Only Labour will end the decline of British pubs’.

I’m not suggesting that any other party would do a better job but, seriously, you couldn’t make it up.

See: Cigarette ban killing off British pubs: 11,000 lost in 10 years (Daily Star), and Devastating impact of the smoking ban on pubs laid bare (Taking Liberties)