§ 34. Mrs Castleasked the Minister of Transport whether he will take steps to prohibit smoking on the lower decks of double-decker buses.
§ Mr. HayThe Government are considering the whole question of smoking in public places, including public service vehicles, in the light of the recent report of the Royal College of Physicians.
§ Mrs. CastleBut is it not quite wrong that this decision should be left to the bus operators? Is it not really time that, without any more delay, non-smokers should get at least equal treatment with smokers? If there are two decks in a bus why cannot the non-smokers be given one of them? Why should they sit choking in other people's smoke?
§ Mr. HayI do not object to what the hon. Lady says, but in practice smoking on the lower decks of double-decker buses is already prohibited by the operators themselves in about 90 per cent. of all double-decker vehicles. All I am saying is that we ought to look at the whole problem of smoking in public places before coming to a unilateral decision on these matters.
§ Mr. ShinwellWhen is this fanaticism going to stop? What with the Whips and what with standing orders and restrictions of various kinds, we cannot even get a smoke nowadays.
§ Mr. HayI thought that the right hon. Gentleman was smoking so much these days that he was about to burst into flames.
§ Mr. RankinThe hon. Gentleman said that the Government were considering the whole problem of smoking in public places. Does that include smoking in aircraft, which, at a different level, are in much the same position as single-deck buses?