Parliament: Landslide win in vote to ban smoking hailed as most important advance in public health for 50 years
Smoking will be banned in pubs, clubs and restaurants in England from summer 2007.
MPs voted last month by a margin of 200 to impose a ban on smoking in all enclosed public spaces except private homes, residential care homes, hospitals, prisons and hotel bedrooms.
The Government initially proposed a ban just in pubs serving food. However, the extended ban won in a free vote offered after many MPs voiced concern that a partial ban could widen the gap between rich and poor areas.
Smokers will face £50 fines and venues allowing smoking will be fined up to £2,500.
Anti-smoking campaigners, including charity Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), have applauded the outcome.
Ash director Deborah Arnott said the ban will save thousands of non-smokers, and smokers who use the law as a reason to quit, from dying early.
She said: "This is the best news for public health for more than thirty years.
"This vote will save thousands of lives, as non-smokers are protected from other people's smoke and as smokers quit in their hundreds of thousands.
"MPs will rarely get the chance to cast a vote that does so much good, at such a little cost, in such a short time."
Cancer Research UK, which has been campaigning for the smoke-free law to be as comprehensive as possible, called the ban "the most important advance in public health since Sir Richard Doll identified that smoking causes lung cancer 50 years ago.
"We're delighted the smoke-free law will give all workers, including those in pubs and private members' clubs, equal protection from the life-threatening effects of second-hand smoke," said professor Alex Markham, Cancer Research UK chief executive.
However, smokers' lobby group Forest condemned the decision.
Forest director Simon Clark said: "A total ban is disproportionate to the problem of second-hand smoke.
"Unfortunately MPs havebeen seduced by an unprecedented campaign of propaganda about the effects of passive smoking,for whichthe evidence is inconclusive.
"The medical profession should be ashamed of itself."
More than two million workers in England and Wales are in direct contact with smoke at work and smoking is allowed on premises where another 10 million work.
