SMOKING will be banned from pub gardens and outside football stadiums, leaked government plans reveal.
Sir Keir Starmer is plotting to drastically extend the indoor smoking ban to a raft of outdoor locations – secret Whitehall papers seen by The Sun show.
The draconian clampdown will be a hammer blow to struggling pubs who have spent decades building shelters in a desperate bid to keep the punters coming.
A government source told The Sun: “Smoking claims 80,000 lives a year, puts huge pressure on our NHS, and costs taxpayers billions.
“We are determined to protect children and non-smokers from the harms of second-hand smoking.
“We’re considering a range of measures to finally make Britain smoke-free.”
Sparking up will be stubbed out from outdoor restaurants, small parks, and even on pavements outside nightclubs.
Students, nurses and anyone playing a match will be stopped from toking outside universities, hospitals and sports grounds.
Vapers could also be stung as part of the new smoke-free rollout, with Shisha bars confirmed as falling foul to the planned restrictions.
It will not cover people’s private homes, nor large open spaces like big national parks or streets.
The outdoor cigarette ban will spark huge controversy and claims of government overreach when it is announced as part of a toughened-up Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
The legislation – initially designed to carry out Rishi Sunak’s plan to eventually phase out fags – made no mention of an outdoor smoking ban when unveiled at the King’s Speech just six weeks ago.
But since then ministers and officials have been working to harden the proposals after fearing too many Brits are suffering from second-hand smoke inhalation.
It has sparked Cabinet tensions, with memos showing the Business Department fearing the financial cost to hospitality businesses from banning fags from pub gardens.
Many landlords have already been forced to close since the pandemic due to rising costs and taxes.
And a recent impact assessment concluded banning outdoor smoking would lead to “significant closures and job losses”.
However the PM has resolved to press ahead with the outdoor ban with the backing of the chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty.
In preparation to combat an inevitable backlash, ministers will argue that the economic benefits far outweigh the costs.
They will claim that smoking costs the Treasury £21.8billion in health spending, dwarfing the amount it raises in tax.
Downing Street will also point to the fury in 2007 when New Labour introduced the indoor smoking ban, claiming that it actually did not hurt businesses but helped save lives.
But it will still be viewed as an immensely radical move by Sir Keir just weeks after he won the election.
Critics will highlight that such a totemic proposal was not disclosed to voters during the campaign.
The manifesto only pledged to honour the Tory plan to continuously raise the smoking age so the “next generation can never legally buy cigarettes”.
A public consultation will be launched over the outdoor smoking ban, but is unlikely to change the government’s position.
While ministers are set to continue talks to finalise the policy, the current blueprint is to ban cigarettes being puffed outside hospitals, schools, college and university campuses, sports grounds, children’s playgrounds.
The distance someone will be allowed to smoke away from one of these locations is yet to be determined.
And especially thorny is the decision to slap pub gardens and restaurant seating areas with the restrictions.
Outdoor spaces in nightclubs are also being hit by the curbs, in a further blow to the Covid-battered sector.
A 2020 government press release made explicitly clear that banning outdoor smoking in bars would be a hammer blow to businesses.
It said: “Since the existing ban was introduced, businesses have invested heavily in their outdoor areas and banning outdoor smoking would lead to significant closures and job losses.
The plans make clear that people’s private homes will remain unaffected as will places where human contact is only temporary, like big parks and roads.
Several grey areas that still appear under discussion include beaches and enclosed parks that bunch lots of people into small spaces.
One option under consideration is to differentiate between big open spaces and smaller more densely-populated ones.
The Whitehall papers also mention vape-free areas but it is currently unclear if the outdoor smoking ban will extend to e-cigarettes.
However Shisha bars are definitely set to suffer, which could spell curtains for the industry.
Like the original Tobacco and Vapes Bill, the outdoor smoking ban will apply to all four countries in the UK.
A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaks. Smoking claims 80,000 lives a year, puts huge pressure on our NHS, and costs taxpayers billions.
“We are determined to protect children and non-smokers from the harms of second-hand smoking.
“We’re considering a range of measures to finally make Britain smoke-free.”
While dozens of Tory MPs will likely vote against the plans in the Commons, Sir Keir will almost certainly push it through with his massive majority.
But the PM is hopeful the public will back the measures, with some polling showing majority support for making pub gardens smoke-free.
Around 6.4million people in the UK are believed to be smokers – around 13 per cent of the population.
However non-users are still harmed by “passive smoking” through inhaling the sidestream from cigarettes.
The NHS warns passive smoking is particularly damaging to children who can develop asthma, chest infections and meningitis.
A current target exists to make England “smoke free” by 2030, meaning fewer than five per cent of the population smoke.
