Senedd election: UKIP calls for 'contained smoking rooms' in pubs

The smoking ban in UK pubs and other enclosed spaces was introduced in 2007

Pubs in Wales should be given the freedom to allow people to smoke indoors, according to UKIP's leader.

Neil Hamilton's party says landlords should have the right to offer "contained and ventilated smoking rooms" and "provide freedom of choice".

He announced the policy ahead of the Welsh Parliament elections, which take place on Thursday.

The smoking ban in pubs and other enclosed spaces was introduced across the UK in 2007.

That was followed by a ban on smoking in cars with children in 2015 and since March, smokers caught sparking up at hospitals, playgrounds or on school sites face a £100 fine.

"What we want to do is provide freedom of choice," he told BBC's Politics Wales programme.

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Mr Hamilton, who is the interim leader his UKIP's UK party and leader and the party's spokesman in Wales, added: "If people want to smoke in a controlled environment and nobody's compelled to share the air that they're exhaling, I don't see why in a free society you shouldn't be able to do that."

He continued: "I'm not a smoker myself and I don't want to sit drinking in a smoke-filled room, but if there are people and there are quite a number of them who would like to do that then in a free country I think they should be allowed to."

Neil Hamilton was previously a Conservative MP for 14 years

UKIP won seven seats in the Senedd in the 2016 election, which was held a month before the EU referendum.

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But after a series of defections, the party's leader Neil Hamilton was the only Senedd member left representing the party, which is polling much lower in the run-up to Thursday's election.

Asked whether the party's move to the right since 2016 was behind the drop in support, Mr Hamilton said: "I don't think you'll find much difference in the manifesto that we're standing on this time and the one we were standing on last time, apart from the fact that we've changed our minds on the utility of devolution."

'Not a racist party'

He has previously defended UKIP's Senedd election candidate Stan Robinson who sent offensive tweets about Muslims.

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Mr Robinson and another UKIP candidate, Dan Morgan, ran an online channel accused of racism, and it was later removed from YouTube.

Asked if UKIP is a racist party, Mr Hamilton said: "No, of course it's not a racist party."

He said the party "bans people who've been members of organisations which are explicitly racist, like the British National Party, from becoming members."

'Devolution has failed'

Supportive of scrapping the Senedd, UKIP's election campaign leaflets read: "Fed up with politicians? Vote to put them out of a job."

Politics Wales asked Mr Hamilton whether that was cynical given he has been a politician for much of his life.

Mr Hamilton replied: "No, I've been many other things as well... I've been a barrister, I've been a journalist as well.

"We want to get rid of the Senedd because devolution has demonstrably failed, and I don't think that this devolution settlement can succeed…but we want to go beyond devolution anyway.

"We don't want to go back to Westminster deciding everything.

"We want to devolve the health service from Cardiff to the people, transfer power from the politicians to the people by having directly elected health boards, so that those who use the services in local communities have a real voice in saying how they're run."

• You can watch the interview on BBC Politics Wales at 22:15 BST on BBC1 Wales on Sunday 2 May or catch-up on iPlayer