Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

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

[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.

Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a privilege to speak in your Lordships’ House, even at 11 o’clock at night. I am a great admirer of my noble friend Lady Stroud, and I am even a great admirer of my noble friend Lord Freud. I should say for the Hansard writers that I am saying that with a smile—he knows that I have a great fondness for him. They are both hugely knowledgeable and great experts in policy in this area, and I know that they have given a huge amount of practical support to people in need in lots of different contexts. They are recognised for that, and rightly so. It therefore gives me no pleasure to disagree with them today, but I do, on both the substance and the practical application of their amendment.

I start, briefly, with the substance. As my noble friend Lord Freud just said, we do not know what the Chancellor will be announcing tomorrow. I know that we have seen quite a bit trailed over the past few days in the media, but we do not know the sum total of what he will announce to alleviate pressure on families faced with rising energy costs and increases in the cost of living. If he is able to do anything with regard to universal credit, I would much rather he changed the taper rate, so that working more hours is clearly advantageous when the temporary £20 uplift comes to an end. I do not support the temporary uplift becoming permanent for various reasons.

But that is irrelevant, because it is not relevant to this Bill. With the best will in the world, it is not a question for us to answer, at least not in this context. That brings me to the practice which my noble friends are applying in order to force this issue into play. My noble friend the Leader has already set out the constitutional and conventional reasons why this approach is outside our standard procedures, and I will not repeat them, but I very much endorse all that she said, and I certainly accept the advice of the clerks. I should add that I am not one of her predecessors who ever had to face the situation she is facing today, but I have been in the Chamber in the past when a similar situation occurred, and I have had my own encounters with this House on matters to do with social security and so on, so this is not an unfamiliar situation.

Having said all that, I want to add a couple of points which I urge my noble friends Lady Stroud and Lord Freud to consider between now and Report Even though I know that they are both hugely principled, and are pursuing their cause with great sincerity, not everyone looking at what is being attempted will see it in that way. I think my noble friends are suggesting that we break our rules because Mr Speaker did not break his own when this Bill was in the other place and he was considering amendments proposed by Members of the Commons.

I am not familiar with all the detail of the goings-on in the other place, but I am aware that this Mr Speaker made a commitment when he was elected that he would be impartial and uphold the rules and conventions of the Commons. This was welcomed by that House and the Government, because it came after a very turbulent period of rules and conventions being ignored by his predecessor as Mr Speaker and by many Members of that House.

Since then, not only does the other place have a new Speaker but there has been a general election, the result of which is many new and re-elected MPs who now have the greater confidence of their electorate. The Prime Minister and the Government overlook this fact and act too often as though they are still facing the same disruptive and obstructive House of Commons pre-2019. I urge him and his ministerial team to reconsider their approach when they are engaging with the House of Commons in particular.

Even though there has been all that change down the other end of the corridor since December 2019, the House of Lords is still the same. We have not faced the electorate; we have not changed. Irrespective of what the Government think about this House, or what some noble Lords think about the Government, we have a responsibility to maintain public confidence in Parliament. Some people outside Parliament might agree with my noble friends on what they are proposing in terms of the substance on universal credit; some of them might agree with me, but what would probably unite all of them is the view that the House of Lords has no place in dictating to the House of Commons—that they elected—what its MPs should do and when.

So let us see what the Chancellor has to say tomorrow, but whatever action he takes, I really hope that my noble friends, whom I am fond of as well as have huge respect for, will not return on Report with a similar amendment to this. Because however well-intentioned and noble their cause, we have no legitimacy engaging in this matter at this time and in this way.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I will be very brief, given the hour. As I said, I am chair of Feeding Britain, and I would like to briefly report from the front line, so to speak, on the effect of the stopping of the £20. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, that this needs to be put before the other House so that there can be a vote on it.

Our experience at Feeding Britain has suggested that the £20 increase in universal credit was responsible for a drop in the number of people needing to use food banks this year—it was 17% lower than before the pandemic. Of course, we also had the school meals campaign by Marcus Rashford and various other people but, since then, in the three weeks since the increase was removed, our social supermarkets, which are affordable food projects, have started to show signs of distress.

Some of those who used to shop monthly for low-cost food, and for whom membership represented a nice insurance policy, are now there every week, if not more. Some who used to use a debit card are now using credit cards. Some of those who used to rely only on our option of low-cost food now also want help with gas and electricity. Some cannot even afford their membership fees, which are as little as £3. They are instead going without the food or having to use food banks. People are really clinging by their fingertips to avoid that nightmare scenario.

I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that we need skills and ways to help people try to avoid the traps that they are in, which is what our social supermarkets do. Being poor is not only an expensive thing to do in this country; it is also very hard work as you spend your life drifting from one office to another trying to find someone who can help you sort out your problems with rent, food, schools et cetera. I am very glad that this House is bringing this amendment forward, because if we do not do it, who will?