Campaigners push for a total ban on workplace smoking

Unions and safety professionals have urged the government to extend its proposed workplace smoking ban to all workers, including those in bars and clubs.

In June the government announced a consultation on plans to ban smoking in most workplaces from the end of 2007.

The proposed ban would cover schools, hospitals, railway stations and shops, although the government has suggested exempting some workplaces with residential premises - such as oil rigs, halls of residence, adult hospices, long-stay adult residential care homes, psychiatric hospitals, prisons and other "places of detention".

All restaurants, pubs and bars preparing and serving food would be smoke-free by the end of 2008. But other pubs and bars would be able to choose whether to permit smoking; if they decided to allow it, smoking would be banned only within one metre of the bar.

The TUC has backed the proposals, but wants workers in all pubs and clubs to be protected. As it currently stands, the ban will not apply to workers in around 30,000 pubs and private clubs.

"Banning smoking at the bar is not enough - smoke from a distance will still find its way into a bar worker's lungs," said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber. "The government needs to go that last little step and make the ban complete."

The British Medical Association has also urged the government to introduce a total ban. And the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, which represents the officers who will have to enforce the law in many workplaces including pubs and clubs, described the proposals as "hideous" and "a dog's breakfast".