Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I was thrilled to add my name to my noble friend Lord Ravensdale’s Amendments 179 and 271. It is seriously important to make sure that the planning system is aligned with our climate and nature targets; this also goes to the heart of whether we will meet our net-zero targets. Currently, our planning system is not doing enough, yet it is one of the most important single levers we have.

All too often we see the degradation of natural habitats caused by housing and other infrastructure, from high-carbon development being approved to homes being built that will later require expensive retrofits. The Environment and Climate Change Committee has just done a report showing how expensive and difficult that process is. It could all be solved in one go. Natural England commented to our inquiry that nature and climate are at risk of further and irreparable damage from a range of pressures, including the need for new housing, which is currently not up to scratch.

It is welcome that the Government are currently consulting on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework to make sure that it contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation as fully as possible, but it is only guidance. Government must send a strong message about the importance it places on achieving our climate and nature targets.

Fully embedding climate and nature within planning also brings, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, great outcomes through green jobs, sustainable economic growth, improved health and well-being, helping to reduce the cost of living in lots of instances and making us more resilient to extreme weather. It is extraordinary that we still build houses in known flood zones; those will only get worse, not better.

At the local authority level, most local plans do not contain any comprehensive or robust policies on climate change mitigation or adaptation, yet lots of local authorities want just that. At the individual decision-making level, ambitious local councils often have their plans refused by the Planning Inspectorate because we have a completely unaligned system. It does not work as a thought-through process from beginning to end, but the Bill provides the perfect opportunity to address this gap.

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[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

The Minister said that everyone is moving in the same direction. Since the big building companies such as Barratt and Taylor Wimpey have not come up, can she enlighten the House on what kinds of conversations she has had with such companies about their willingness to adopt a statutory policy about net zero into their building targets?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I have certainly had no conversations with those people, and I do not know whether the Housing Minister has. I will make sure to ask and find out. That is the whole idea of planning: if the policy requires it, the developers need to act within planning policy in order to develop.

I reiterate that the Government will be reviewing the strategic objectives set out in planning policy to ensure that they support the Government’s environmental targets under the Environment Act, net zero, and the national adaptation programme. This comes back to what the noble Baroness opposite was saying: are we joining it up? Yes, we are checking it with the Environment Act to make sure that we will deliver through the planning system everything that we agreed to in it.

While I appreciate the essence of this amendment, it is not one that the Government feel able to support, given the clear purposes for planning already set out in national policy.

COP 27

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My noble friend makes some important points, and in in a sense she balances the opening question. Sometimes there are difficult issues; not everyone is as zealous on these matters as we in your Lordships’ House. The enthusiasm of the younger generation for these policies and the things we need to do is a great sign of hope. But we will seek to carry the whole population with us, in whatever way, in doing the important things we have to do. I agree with the substance of what my noble friend said.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, the IPCC says that there are two great drivers of carbon emissions. One is obviously fossil fuels, but the other is population growth. Today, as I am sure everyone knows, is the day the world population passed 8 billion people. Our budget towards the UNFPA used to be £200 million, but we recently reduced it by 85% to just £32 million a year. The agency reckons that, within the area that we supported, that has resulted in 14.6 million unintended pregnancies, as well as 4.3 million really unsafe abortions. All statistics show that if you empower women, especially in the developing world, it helps towards changing attitudes and behaviours and reducing population. Can the Government give us some reassurance that, at least on this specific part of overseas aid, they will look to restore that budget and encourage other countries to do the same?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness invites me to go into some extremely sensitive areas which touch on every individual’s personal beliefs and aspirations—and the beliefs and aspirations of different nations and cultures. One thing that my right honourable friend Mr Johnson was extraordinarily keen on was the promotion of women’s rights, particularly young women’s rights, across the world. I think he was absolutely right on that. I hear what the noble Baroness said, but on some of these policies, we need young women to be fully and properly educated so they can then make informed choices for themselves in their places and nations.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Black, has put a convincing and comprehensive case for his amendments, which I have signed. He has knocked back nearly every argument made by the Government in this House and in correspondence against a level playing field being established for platform liability.

In his letter after Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, said:

“The scale and speed of advertising online, as well as the personalised nature of advertising and the lack of transparency in this system, makes it difficult for platforms to have control over what is placed on them.”


They have far more control than the broadcasters. They run their own digital advertising agencies. Facebook and Google have massive market share in their own individual digital markets.

It is extraordinary that the Government are buying these arguments from the social media platforms. They are on extremely thin ground. If the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, pushes these amendments to a vote, we will support him.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I support noble Lord, Lord Bethell, in his amendments demanding a timescale for the ban on such adverts. Advertising is the only business in the world that spends an enormous amount of money and then suggests that it does not work. It is a curious state of affairs that the advertising industry, as well as the food industry, which spends upwards of £0.5 billion a year on advertising HFSS food, says that advertising does not work, but the fact is that it does.

Research has shown that half of all food ads shown in September on ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky One were for HFSS products. That number rose to nearly 60% between 6 pm and 9 pm. Ofcom research also suggests that children’s viewing peaks in the hours after school, with the largest number of child viewers concentrated around family viewing time, between 6 pm and 9 pm. People in food policy have worked, as I have worked, for a very long time for this ban. We thoroughly applaud the Government for doing it. I also applaud my noble friend Lord Krebs for taking apart that protein bar, because it illustrates the way in which the food industry works. I have heard all too often, especially when I first came into this House—albeit not so much now—people saying, “All you need to do is exercise to get rid of the excess weight.” We know that that is a line put out by the industry. The industry is very clever. Yes, they have managed to sell the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, their protein bar, but they have not sold it properly. I hope that, with this ban, the Government will look at all the other sneaky ways in which food companies put things through, whether it is high-energy drinks or whatever, that are incredibly destructive to our health. As my noble friend Lord Krebs, said, we have an unenviable first position in the scale of obesity around the world, and we need to end it now.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I should declare that I am chairman of the Communications and Digital Select Committee. I support Amendment 151A and the others in the name of my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood. I do so because this is a matter of fairness.

Following on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has just said, the broadcasters have accepted that a pre-watershed ban on junk food advertising is coming. They and I also understand that the online platforms face a complete ban. However, once again, the legacy or heritage media businesses are the only ones which will face serious financial penalties if they make a mistake and, for whatever reason, allow a non-compliant piece of advertising to slip through and appear on air. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will emphasise that the difference between the online platforms and broadcasters is only therefore about regulatory burdens and sanctions, but that is the point, and it is why this is unfair.

Why should the media businesses which will be significantly disadvantaged commercially by the ad ban be the only ones fined if something goes wrong? Why should the media businesses which continue to lose ad revenue to online platforms stand by and watch as those same platforms—Google, Facebook, YouTube—are not yet subject to any statutory regulatory regime to prevent their unfair market dominance? How can it be right that they shrug their shoulders when it comes to liability for the ads they profit from? They profit from them to a much larger degree than the broadcasters profit from the ads they run.

When I spoke in Committee, the Minister said in reply that all this would be dealt with via the online advertising programme and that a consultation would start shortly. Any progress on that will be welcome, but there is a limit to how much consultation the media industry can take. What it needs is action, which means legislation to deal with these various digital market and competition issues that currently favour big online platforms and are detrimental to everyone else, including consumers. To fail to do that while prioritising legislation that hits the traditional broadcasters more harshly than online platforms is unfair.

As I have said, those of us who support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Black do not want to delay the ban on junk food advertising, but in introducing it, we should make sure that liability for mistakes and failures to comply with regulations is fair. The Bill as it stands is not. I am very grateful to the Minister for the time she has given to hearing these arguments, but urge her to reconsider the merits of these amendments, especially bearing in mind that we are still a long way from new legislation that will finally level the playing field across the media sector. If my noble friend divides the House, I will vote with him.

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.

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[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.

Ecocide

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for establishing a crime of ecocide.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, for her long-standing commitment to safeguarding the environment, but she will know that the ICC is far from functioning effectively in relation to the jurisdiction it already has. Our priority is to improve its ability to prosecute existing crimes against humanity before we create new ones.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the Minister for her reply, but many noble Lords and many people around the world would now consider that crimes are being perpetuated against the environment, whether deforestation in Asia or South America, what is happening in the seas on an international level or the known culpability of many of the producers of fossil fuels to not just confuse the issue but downright lie. I would call that crimes against humanity. At the moment, we have limited ability to prosecute. The G20 meeting for Environment and Climate Ministers starts tomorrow in Naples. Could the Minister talk to our representative and ask whether they will raise this issue? This is gaining traction around the world. When we look at the fires in California and the floods in Germany, I do not think we can sit back and say that, as a world, we can continue to do nothing about this.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I know that the noble Baroness has a lot of support on this issue around the House, but the UK will use its COP 26 presidency and all the leadership positions it holds to continue to demonstrate global leadership on climate and nature. Of course I will relay her comments to the Italian conference tomorrow. It is not possible to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees without radical action on nature; I think we all agree on that. Our presidency will seek to drive action to protect and restore ecosystems, and to invest in sustainable agriculture throughout the world.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

Yes. Part of the reason behind that is that the number of younger people testing positive is falling, particularly among the university student population. Universities should certainly be congratulated on the work they have been doing, but I point out to my noble friend that the over- 60s rate, which then correlates with future hospitalisations, is still rising.

[Baroness Boycott (CB) [V]]

I welcome the more generous level of support to self-employed people announced by the Chancellor, but the 3 million self-employed people who were disqualified from receiving support earlier this year remain so. Given that many of these people are now hungry, as we have seen in Feeding Britain, which I chair, and are having to use food banks for the first time in their lives, will the Minister urgently review the eligibility criteria?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, we have put in place a comprehensive economic package but the noble Baroness is right that some people have not benefited from certain schemes. The Treasury and the Chancellor and his team always keep this under review and we will continue to look so that we can provide as much support as we can to people at this difficult time.