With less than three weeks to go until England’s workplace smoking ban comes into force, lawyers have pointed out that differences in the legislation between the four UK nations is a recipe for confusion.

The problem, says Sara Sawicki, an employment law partner at Pinsent Masons, is not the buildings, which tend to stay where they are, but the differences in legislation applying to vehicles – particularly those which travel to all four countries.

For instance, in England all company vehicles come under the legislation if they can be driven by more than one person. Meanwhile, in Scotland, most cars are exempt.

The signage requirements are also different: all countries require vehicles to display the international no smoking sign but in England it only has to be 70mm in diameter, in Wales and Northern Ireland it has to be 75mm or larger. In Scotland there are no size requirements but there must be text along with the symbol and details of an owner or manager to whom complaints about smoking can be addressed.

“If you are a company whereby your employees drive to each of the four jurisdictions within the UK my advice would be to introduce a policy that all company vehicles should be smoke free,” said Sawicki.

“The signage that is included in the vehicle should be the international no smoking sign which should be at least 75mm in diameter, which would meet the size requirement in Wales and Northern Ireland, but also to adopt the Scottish requirement as to wording.

“When you look into the regulations in the various different jurisdictions there are an awful lot of grey areas,” she added.

Meanwhile, research from employment law consultancy Peninsula shows that 91 per cent of workers support the smoking ban and 79 per cent of workers who smoke are attempting to give up.

However, only 74 per cent of the employers surveyed already had a no smoking ban in force and Peninsula’s MD Peter Done said: “Employers need to address the issue of workplace smoking sooner rather than later and ensure the policy they adopt is effective and satisfies the requirements of the new act.”