Health and Care Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, should be taking part remotely. If the noble Lord is there, would he like to speak? We will continue with the debate and when we can get hold of him, we will bring him in.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests—there are a lot of them in terms of food, but this is for a specific reason: I am a trustee of the Food Foundation, chair of Feeding Britain, a patron of Sustain, an adviser on the national food strategy and chair of VegPower. I also work with Cancer Research and the Obesity Health Alliance.

We welcome the Health and Care Bill, which contains provisions to limit adverts of unhealthy food and drink on TV and online to protect children’s health. I also support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on alcohol, which is not covered in my amendment. She is completely right about the fact that such advertising encourages people to drink—something I know a lot about, to my cost—and put on weight.

These provisions are found in Schedule 17 of the Bill. All the different charities and NGOs I have worked with have argued for this for many years and we are incredibly pleased that the Government have made these provisions part of the Bill. They have been supported by all of us, and the Obesity Health Alliance and all cancer charities. So, I am shocked—we all are—and puzzled that during this Committee, quite a lot of amendments have been tabled in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Vaizey of Didcot, that would directly weaken or delay these proposals. As far as I know, and I have worked in the food business for a long time, I have not seen their names associated with campaigns to do with children’s health—in particular, around obesity.

I want quickly to explain what these amendments would do. Amendments 245, 255, 256, 257 and 317 would delay implementation of the various restrictions—for example, blocking the 9 pm TV watershed until a full calendar year after Ofcom publishes the technical guidance. This would delay the planned implementation by at least six months. We all appreciate that the food and advertising industries will need time to review the technical guidance, but this is just too long.

Amendments 245A and 250ZA would limit the restrictions, so that they apply only at weekends, but kids do not watch TV only at weekends. Amendments 247, 250A and 253A would enshrine exemptions for brand adverts if specific products are not displayed; for example, McDonald’s could advertise lettuce. The Government have already stated that brand advertising will be exempt from some of these restrictions, so why do we have to go further?

Amendments 248 and 251 would exempt certain unhealthy products from the restrictions, including

“chocolate confectionery in portion sizes smaller than 200 kcal”.

The amendments conflict entirely with the purposes of the policy, which is to limit children’s exposure to the advertising of products that are high in fat, sugar and salt. Quite frankly, some products of under 200 calories can contain more than half of a child’s recommended daily sugar limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I never said—and other noble Lords who oppose these amendments never said—that the single act of banning junk food advertising at certain times on television will solve the obesity problem. When McKinsey did a survey on what needed to be done, eight or nine years ago, it came up with 81 different measures the Government needed to undertake. This is just one of them. It happens to be an important one that the Government have put forward, and I believe the Committee should support it.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)]

I will continue. Successive Governments throughout my too many years in the media, faced with intractable social problems, have turned to bashing television, television advertising, violence on television, the Troubles and so on. I remember Prime Minister Thatcher introducing a measure that banned direct speech by duly elected Members of Sinn Féin, thinking that it would in some way contribute to the end of the Troubles. The list is endless, and this is yet another one.

The Government have missed the target. The target is the manufacturers of unhealthy foods. I ask the Minister whether, at the end, she will kindly give us a sense of what the Government are doing to get to the heart of the problem, which is the reformulation of these unhealthy foods. It is no good blaming the messenger and the media; you have to get to the heart of the problem, and at the heart of the problem are products that have too much sugar and other harmful—maybe even addictive—contents in them.

I will conclude, in the interests of brevity, by expressing my great sympathy for the Front Bench in having to defend this ghastly piece of legislation.