Youth mobility deal ‘in the British interest’, says German ambassador – UK politics live

Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, said reports of government plans to ban smoking in some outdoor areas “have understandably caused concern across the sector”.

He said:

This raises the critical question: Are we on the brink of becoming a nanny state? What is next?

While these measures may rightly be driven by public health considerations, they risk dividing opinion and imposing yet another regulatory burden on businesses already facing considerable challenges.

At a time when our industry desperately needs the freedom to trade, the last thing we need is further barriers.

Although many will not be personally affected by these potential changes, it’s important to recognise that 6.4 million people in the UK still smoke, many of whom enjoy doing so in social settings like beer gardens. These leaked regulations could significantly impact their lifestyle choices and the businesses that serve them.

As we consider the implications of these potential restrictions, we must question whether such an approach is truly in the public interest, or whether it risks over-regulation at the cost of personal freedom and business viability.”

Reem Ibrahim, acting director of communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs thinktank, said:

Banning outdoor smoking would be another nail in the coffin for the pub industry. The government’s own impact assessment concluded that banning smoking outdoors will lead to pub closures and job losses.

Pubs and other private venues should be able to determine their own outdoor smoking rules – just as they should be allowed to decide whether to play music, serve food or show football on TV.

Smoking rates are already declining in the UK, in large part due to smokers switching to safer alternatives to combustible cigarettes.

The government should look to countries like Sweden, which has attained the lowest prevalence of smoking in the world not by implementing nanny state measures like this proposal, but by allowing adults to choose safer and healthier products.”

Keir Starmer is in Paris today. The PA news agency report that the prime minister has met Paralympics GB athletes at their prep camp in Saint-German-en-Laye, west Paris.

Starmer spoke to coaches Maria Adey and Pamela Robson, before meeting shotputters Aled Davies and Funmi Oduwaiye and javelin thrower Ben Pembroke.

According to the PA news agency, they discussed their preparation for the Paralympics, disabled people’s access to sport and inspiring the next generation before Davies and Oduwaiye demonstrated shotputting technique for the prime minister.

On the Sun report that smoking could be banned in pub gardens, outdoor restaurants, outside hospitals and at sports grounds in the UK under tighter restrictions being considered by ministers, according to leaked documents, here is some more reaction:

The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, told the Sun: “It’ll be the end of pubs.”

The Conservative party leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick told the newspaper: “The last thing this country needs is thousands more pubs closing. Our country faces huge challenges. Why is Starmer focusing on this nonsense?”

The move has reportedly sparked cabinet tensions, with memos showing the Department for Business and Trade fearing the financial cost to hospitality. Many landlords have been forced to close since the Covid crisis because of rising costs and taxes.

But Keir Starmer is said to have resolved to press ahead with the outdoor ban, with the backing of England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty.

Stewart Wood, a former adviser to the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, told BBC’s Newsnight:

There’s a difference between smoking outside and walking in a forest and smoking outside where there are large groups of people, particularly children, concentrated, like restaurants, like pub gardens, like football matches.”

Dr Layla McCay, of the NHS Confederation, has said she is “heartened” to see that progress is being made on abolishing smoking.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme:

I’m obviously in favour of measures that help abolish smoking, we have seen from the previous government and from this current government, and indeed from wider society, this strong commitment to move towards abolishing smoking, it is absolutely the health challenge of our time.

It’s the leading cause of preventable illness in the UK. So, we are heartened to see that progress is being made and that the intention is moving forward to really address one of Britain’s main drivers of health inequalities.”

She added:

Ultimately, all of these steps are steps in the same journey, which is towards a smoke-free future for Britain, reducing those health inequalities, reducing the huge problems that are caused to the individual and to society from smoking.

So, it’s not surprising but in this journey there will be different types of decisions, and there will be hard decisions that need to be made.

I think that, as a society, we do recognise that this is the right direction of travel, that has been very clear for many years.”

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade group UKHospitality, has said any plans to ban smoking in some outdoor areas should be “thought through very carefully before we damage businesses and economic growth and jobs”.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme:

I’m not sure at this point in time what the proposals are for banning smoking in public places and outdoors, but it would seem sensible for us to be able to look at that more carefully and think about that in due course, after we’ve taken some of these other steps that could be looked at.

This is not without economic harm, and it’s not without economic cost to businesses that are providing outside areas for smokers and non-smokers, and also vapers, because I note in some of the reports there’s suggestions that vaping in outside areas could also be restricted.

So, this needs to be thought through very carefully before we damage businesses and economic growth and jobs.”

Nicholls added that there has been “big investment” in outside areas for smokers and non-smokers since the coronavirus pandemic, saying a ban would be a “significant hit”.

Smoking could be banned in pub gardens, outdoor restaurants, outside hospitals and at sports grounds in the UK under tighter restrictions being considered by ministers, according to leaked documents.

The measures are being proposed as part of a tougher version of the previous government’s tobacco and vapes bill, which would prohibit the sale of tobacco to those born on or after January 2009, the Sun reports.

Secret Whitehall papers confirmed plans to extend the indoor smoking ban, despite some opposition within government, the newspaper said.

It added that under the proposals lighting up would also be banned at open-air spaces at clubs and restaurants, and pavements next to both, as well as outside universities, children’s play areas and small parks.

Ministers could also target vapers as well as shisha bars, it said. The restrictions will not cover private homes or large open spaces, such as parks, or streets.

The tobacco and vapes bill was introduced in parliament earlier this year but fell when the general election was called. Last month’s king’s speech promised to reintroduce legislation to increase progressively the age at which people can buy cigarettes, though made no mention of an outdoor ban.

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Good morning, and welcome to today’s blog, bringing you the latest news across the UK’s political scene.

Following Keir Starmer’s meeting yesterday with German chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Germans are continuing to highlight their enthusiasm for a youth mobility deal.

Germany’s ambassador to the UK has said an agreement with the EU “should be in the British interest”.

Miguel Berger told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme:

There are many misunderstandings about what youth mobility really means. It is not freedom of movement, it has nothing to do with migration.

It means that young people, who are really those who have most lost because of Brexit, that they have the possibility to come to the European Union, to come to the United Kingdom, for a limited amount of time, and then they will leave.

So, it’s enhancing the possibilities for young people. That’s what we want. And it’s not only Germany, I can tell you all the 27 in the European Union want to enhance that.”

As PA Media reports, Berger went on:

Youth mobility should also be in the British interest. Young people from this country might want to live for a year in Berlin or in Madrid or in Paris, and the youth mobility scheme would open that possibility.”

Yesterday, in his press conference with Scholz, Starmer said there were no plans for a youth mobility deal but speaking to reporters later, he pointedly did not rule out setting up some sort of system for other link-ups, for example student exchanges.

In other developments:

• Keir Starmer has told reporters in Germany of his concern that the UK could face a rise in mass far-right populism as seen in their country and France, as he said it was his mission to “inject some hope” into the country.

• After his visit to Germany, Starmer will meet Emmanuel Macron this morning for bilateral talks in Paris. He arrived in the city, and met the French president, last night for the Paralympics opening ceremony.

• The government is reportedly considering banning smoking in some outdoor areas to improve public health. The indoor smoking ban could be extended to cover beer gardens or outside football stadiums, according to leaked plans seen by the Sun newspaper.

• The Home Office has been accused of submitting “woeful” budget figures under successive Conservative ministers – which officials knew understated the ballooning cost of asylum and illegal immigration spending. In a report partially vindicating Rachel Reeves’s claim that the new Labour government inherited a far worse financial situation than initially thought, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank suggested the Home Office had repeatedly lowballed its budget estimates.

• Colum Eastwood is to quit as leader of Northern Ireland’s SDLP, PA Media news agency understands. Eastwood is expected to announce the decision when he “makes a personal statement” about his future on Thursday, a senior SDLP source said.