Rolling changes

Karen Jones, chief executive of Spirit Group, discusses how the five-year smoking plan could save pubs from an all-out national ban. By Daniel Pearce.

Signing up to the trade's new proposition on smoking has been easy for Spirit Group. Most of the chain's venues will be smoke-free at the bar before Christmas - a year ahead of schedule - and it will also be straightforward to cut back the trading floor space given over to smoking within the five-year timeframe.

There are no tenants or lessees to win around - just managers to ensure their employer's policy is put into practice.

But Spirit Group chief executive Karen Jones knows that this is not just about her company - the whole industry needs to act on smoking if the new policy is to be a success, and a national ban is to be averted.

"This is a true industry issue which needs to be inclusive," she says. "Of course we wanted to run a much wider-ranging programme of communication before this was announced, it's important that we get to every freetrader and publican. But we were working to a timetable that wasn't our own."

That timetable was set at a meeting on July 21 which saw industry leaders thrash out the issue with health secretary John Reid and culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

The trade was told in no uncertain terms that the government was unimpressed with its attempts to tackle the issue to date, and it was given less than two months to come up with a credible alternative to a smoking ban - or face the consequences.

"We were left under no illusion that we had to show a very serious intent to move the industry position forward, or else look at alternatives including local bans," says Karen.

"Local bans, administered by local councils, would be extremely unhelpful, and extremely difficult to enforce. Spirit employs 45,000 part-time people, and often they are women who work lunchtime shifts. Their income is extremely important to the family economy. To think that people could actually move counties to work in a smoke-free environment is ridiculous.

"It would be similarly absurd for local authorities to say that the health of staff in Middlesbrough, for example, is more important than in Ipswich," she contends. "This was put in front of us, and we explained why it was something that we could not support."

The key to the issue is to "marry what's right with what is commercially sound," says Karen. "Because we are big employers and have to protect people's jobs."

It was then that the companies embarked on defining the policy finalised at a meeting at the British Beer & Pub Association's HQ in Vauxhall, London, on September 2, before it was announced a week later.

The current position could not have been reached without the work of the Charter Group, believes Karen, although she makes it clear that now is the time to move on. "We were told very clearly at that meeting that the existing proposals on the table were not enough - but it had been a great move to get the industry to that point. The Charter is a great foundation stone. Without that, getting this far would have been much more difficult."

Potential pitfalls​

Clearly there are pitfalls to the strategy. National newspaper headlines claiming that 22,000 pubs would be introducing the policy were unhelpful, although Enterprise, Punch and Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises - the only tenanted companies to have signed up to the agreement so far - are now working hard to encourage licensees to consider it.

For many smaller pubs, particularly those in rural areas, it may not be feasible to restrict smoke to a fifth of floor space.

"No-one is saying the implementation of this is going to be easy. There will be much debate. I don't have a solution for every pub - it may well be that certain pubs will go completely non-smoking."

Meanwhile, the talks continue, with more pub companies and others expected to sign up to the "statement of intent".

"It's very important that we all go out and talk to our colleagues. For this to succeed it mustn't be seen as personal to companies or trade associations. We've all got to get behind it. This is a position which would appear to have real weight behind it - for government to say 'yes we respect this', shows real intent. We've got to start getting other people's ideas on board. We haven't met much resistance yet," she says.

Above all, says Karen, the smoking policy is proving what the industry can achieve when people within it put their competitive and practical differences to one side.

She warns both pub companies and licensees that doing nothing about smoking is simply no longer an option.

"We either be legislated against, or have a really serious go. We're taking a big step - one we feel can be publicly credible," she says.

"We are trying to build unity - if the government sees any sign of disunity how can it believe we will get behind this?"

Karen, for one, has every faith that the industry can change. "The pub is a very resilient institution and has shown itself able to adapt and to adopt different positions. Together we will work it out."

Karen Jones' four main arguments against a ban: ​

• Economic:​

"A national ban would mean pubs close and jobs are lost - we are estimating 5,000 pubs and 75,000 jobs."

Social​

"If a quick national ban came in, people wouldn't stop
drinking - they would drink at home. You are in real danger of forcing drinking and smoking back into the heart of the house, and into the heart of the family."

Policing​

"There are now genuine disorder issues in Dublin because large numbers of people are standing outside pubs smoking and drinking. Running parallel with the whole smoking debate is the government's alcohol harm reduction strategy - these issues seem to run counter to each other."

Customers​

"Customers want a choice. They want to keep going to the pub, and they want to keep going with their smoking and non-smoking friends. We've asked customers twice and we have got the same answer - only 20 per cent want a ban."

On September 8, Enterprise Inns, Mitchells & Butlers, Punch, Scottish & Newcastle Pub Enterprises and Spirit Group committed to:

• Banning smoking at the bar before 2006
• Banning smoking in the back of house before 2006
• Reducing smoking in dining areas to an absolute maximum of 50 per cent of floor space by 2006
• Reducing smoking throughout pubs to a maximum of 20 per cent of floor space by 2010.

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