Wales is to become the first country in the UK to ban smoking in outdoor school spaces, playgrounds and hospital grounds.
The Labour-led government said on Friday it would bring in the restriction by summer 2019, arguing it would protect people from secondhand smoke and “de-normalise” smoking for children and young people.
While most hospitals already have no-smoking policies in their grounds, it is difficult for staff to enforce this. The government said people who flouted the ban could face fines.
The Cardiff administration brought in the ban on smoking in indoor public places in April 2007, ahead of England.
The Welsh health secretary, Vaughan Gething, said: “I am proud that Wales continues to be at the forefront of UK action to reduce smoking and prevent young people from taking it up in the first place.
“We have seen significant changes to the attitudes to smoking since 2007. Back then we received some resistance to change, but we have seen a remarkable culture change and I am pleased our plan to extend smoke-free areas to outdoor public spaces has received overwhelming public support.”
Gething visited the maternity unit at Glan Clwyd hospital in north Wales, where staff told him they had received complaints from mothers about people smoking outside the hospital when they enter and leave with their young babies.
Teresa Owen, the executive director of public health at Betsi Cadwaladr University health board, said: “A hospital is no place for smoking and the health board is determined to create a smoke-free environment. We need to find a way of ensuring our site is smoke-free, while also supporting more patients, visitors and staff to quit.”
The government said smoking caused about 5,450 deaths each year in Wales and cost the NHS an estimated £302m annually in the country.
Suzanne Cass, the chief executive of the tobacco control campaign group ASH Wales Cymru, said: “This raft of smoke-free legislation is the most important Wales has seen for our nation’s health since the indoor smoking ban in 2007. These laws are a major public health achievement and will further Wales’ profile as the UK lead in tobacco control measures.
“With a classroom of young people still taking up smoking every day in Wales it is essential we make sure children do not see smoking as a normal, everyday activity. We must set positive examples wherever we can.
“Support for banning smoking at communal outdoor spaces – such as at hospital grounds, school grounds and playgrounds – is high in Wales.”
The smokers’ group Forest criticised the move. Its director, Simon Clark, said: “Threatening hospital patients, visitors and staff with fines when some of them may be at their most vulnerable is despicable. What’s wrong with a designated smoking area?
“Smoking is a comfort to some and targeting patients for smoking in the open air discriminates against those who are infirm or less mobile.
“Smoking outside poses no threat to public health, nor is there evidence that children start smoking because they witness complete strangers lighting up in public.
“We don’t advocate smoking in playgrounds or school grounds but people should be allowed to use their common sense without further interference from a government that has nothing better to do than criminalise ordinary working people.”
The changes will be introduced under the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017, which was passed by assembly members last year.
