Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) (England) Regulations 2021

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare that I chair the Commission on Alcohol Harm. We cannot ignore the obesity epidemic, and we must grasp the nettle of the crisis of eating disorders of all types. However, alcoholic drinks are a major contributor to national ill health and obesity.

In 2020, our commission took evidence on alcohol harms, and I want to focus on the evidence we heard about the obesogenic effect of alcoholic drinks. As the Institute of Public Health in Ireland told us, alcohol

“can make a significant contribution to levels of overweight and obesity in the adult population”.

Adults who drink get nearly 10% of their daily calorie intake on average from alcohol, but people are ignorant of the calories. Over 80% of people do not know, or underestimate, the number of calories in a glass of wine and, similarly, over 80% of people do not know, or underestimate, the calorific content of a pint of lager.

A 175ml glass of 12% alcohol-by-volume wine has about 158 calories. That is equivalent to more than three Jaffa cakes, and it is more than a 330ml can of Coca-Cola, which contains 139 calories. This means that, per ml, wine contains more than double the calories of Coca-Cola. The Government have recognised the obesogenic effect of fizzy drinks through their high calorie content but turned a blind eye to one of the most damaging substances to our economy. Yet 308,000 children currently live with at least one adult who drinks at a high-risk level in England. We worry about obesity and do nothing about the most harmful of obesogenic substances.

Alcohol is exempt from the labelling requirements for food and non-alcoholic drinks. Alcoholic drinks are only required to display the volume and strength, and some wines are required to include allergens. I suggest that the alcohol industry is happy to describe alcohol by volume content, because it knows perfectly well that the public do not understand what this means, either in daily consumption terms or in calories. Information on nutritional values, including calories, ingredients, health warnings and so on are largely absent from labels. In commenting on this, the professor of public health nutrition Annie Anderson, told us she is

“shocked how far alcohol is always kept out of nutrition policy”.

Today’s debate is an example of that.

I would like to quote Adrian Chiles, who explored labelling for “Panorama”. He said:

“It is absurd in a pub that you buy a pint, it doesn’t have to tell you how many calories are in it, but you buy a bag of crisps to go with the pint, by law, it has to give you the number of calories … on an alcoholic product you don’t have to provide nutritional information including calories … if you’ve got a Becks blue, which is the alcohol free one, it’s got all the nutritional information and how many calories on it, ordinary Becks, they don’t have to put it on there”.


If we are labelling food with calories, it is blatantly absurd and deeply irresponsible to ignore alcoholic drinks, both in the bottle and when served by the glass in all out-of-home venues. There is evidence, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, that when calories are displayed on drinks, people drink less, thereby also decreasing their liver damage, their risk of injury, of a road accident or of fuelling their addiction, quite apart from reducing their calorie intake and the obesogenic effect. I could go on. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe.

Organ Tourism and Cadavers on Display Bill [HL]

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 16th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ribeiro, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on all the work he has done in this area and on the Bill. I declare that I chair the UK advisory panel of the Commonwealth “Tribute to Life” project, which is creating a memorandum of understanding to promote and support the highest standards of ethical transplantation across all Commonwealth nations.

The “Real Bodies” exhibition reminded me of the two mass murderers Burke and Hare, who killed between 1827 and 1828 in Edinburgh, supplying victims’ bodies to Edinburgh University for anatomy dissection. One night, they killed an old woman and her grandson. When Hare’s horse refused to pull the heavy load of two corpses uphill in a herring barrel, in anger he shot the horse dead. Burke was convicted and hanged; people paid good money to watch his execution, after which he was publicly dissected. Hare, though, escaped to England. Why the association? Both involved a supply of bodies for purported anatomical education, for profit and with no known consent.

The plastinated bodies exhibition had commercial gain, no evidence of consent to these people’s bodies being used and no evidence they died naturally. Indeed, emails reveal some were supplied for plastination in China after key organs had been removed, suggesting their bodies are the remains from a despicable trade in genocide, organ harvesting and commercial transplantation in China. These bodies on display included a woman in advanced pregnancy. Did she give fully informed consent when dying in pregnancy? The evidence of proper consent processes should be open to international scrutiny. It is not.

China appears to have been killing persecuted religious minorities, particularly Uighurs and Falun Gong practitioners, then harvesting and selling their organs on an industrial scale. At least 29 people have gone from the UK to China to avail themselves of organ transplants. They will have been told the organs came from people who died in accidents et cetera, not that someone was killed to order because there was a reasonable blood group match.

We cannot legislate directly against China’s despicable organ trade, but we can close the loophole in the Human Tissue Act 2004 that makes us complicit. We require careful consent for anatomical donation, through the Anatomy Act, and the use of tissues in this country, through the Human Tissue Act, for any practice. UK ethical standards around transplantation are exemplary. This Bill stops double standards, it supports ethical transplantation and it sends a message worldwide. I hope that the Government will support it.

Covid-19

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, following the G7 we pulled together a joint task force with USA colleagues to address the precise point that the noble Baroness alludes to. That joint task force is working extremely hard to resolve the various practical, epidemiological and virological arrangements for the kind of green-list corridor that we would like to have between our two friendly countries. I am hopeful we will be able to make announcements on that shortly.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

I would be most grateful if the Minister could follow on from the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, and tell us when these plans will be published. The statement says

“we do not believe that infection rates will put unsustainable pressure on the NHS”,

yet we know that the lambda variant, if it should come into the UK and spread, is probably antibody resistant. We know that already, last weekend, some emergency departments had waiting times of around eight hours because they were under such pressure from patients plus staff sickness. We know that it is completely inhumane to expect parents of a sick baby to go into work if the child has RSV during the winter, so those members of staff will inevitably take unpaid leave if they are not allowed to take leave to look after their child.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The challenge presented by workforce illness in the NHS is acute at the moment. It is one we are very conscious of, and the noble Baroness is entirely right that parents who have a sick child must stay at home. Not only is that humane; it is also infection control wisdom. That puts the pressure on. That is why we have prioritised vaccination among healthcare staff, and we are prioritising the boosters for staff.

In terms of managing emergency services, we are conducting a huge marketing campaign around the use of NHS 111 so that people can book their slot and be directed to the right kinds of services because, as the noble Baroness knows, many people who turn up in emergency departments are not necessarily in the right place for the conditions they present.

In terms of variants of concern, we are keeping an eye on lambda, beta and all those that may present a vaccine escape risk. We will take whatever steps necessary to address their threat.

Folic Acid

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am looking forward to outlining the draft timetable, but I will not be able to do so before the Recess.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, following on from the Minister’s answers, can he tell us whether a provisional target date has been set with the devolved nations for the implementation? Given that we know that 90% of women aged 16 to 49 currently have folate levels below that required to reduce the risk of neural tube defects and that 70% of adults—that includes men—have folate levels so low that they are at risk of anaemia, this is an urgent problem.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I share the sense of urgency expressed by the noble Baroness in her articulation of those statistics. They are both worrying and entirely accurate. We very engaged with the devolved assemblies. Welsh and Scottish Ministers have expressed their support, but with Northern Ireland it is important that we consider all the implications of the Northern Ireland protocol. I am therefore not able to lay out the precise timetable now, but I reassure the noble Baroness that we are moving as quickly as we can.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I understand the question put by my noble friend but I am afraid that I do not recognise the anecdote to which she refers in terms of hospitals’ treatment of individuals. Nor do I particularly recognise the generalisation that males and females are affected by the disease differently, but I would be very happy to look into this matter and write to her if I can find more details.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I thank the Minister for his responses and for the meetings he has set up. Using his words, given the challenges of “getting the NHS back to speed”, as well as the predicted rise in seriously ill patients with infections— both from influenza and Covid variants such as beta, lambda and others that may emerge—what contingency plans are being developed and activated now? What is being done to increase bed capacity for the autumn and winter and to recruit, train and upskill staff who have currently stepped back from or retired from clinical care, to increase overall capacity?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is entirely right to make the connection between Covid and flu. We regard the winter as presenting two pandemics, and we will treat them with equal energy. Flu and Covid have the same net effect on the healthcare system, which is to be a huge drain on resources. So we are putting a huge amount of effort into the vaccine and boosters for Covid and the vaccination against flu. They can be taken together, and the advertising and promotion distribution to identify priority groups will be extremely energetic. That is the most important thing we can do to protect the NHS. Our second priority, though, is getting the beds to which the noble Baroness referred used for elective surgery. We do not want to see the NHS heaving under the pressure of Covid and flu. We want to see it addressing the backlog.

Social Care and the Role of Carers

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, on securing this timely debate. I declare my interests with Marie Curie, the Motor Neurone Disease Association and other charities; I also chair the National Mental Capacity Forum.

There are two main groups needing social care: those with long-term chronic conditions, both physical and mental disorders, often both; and those who are terminally ill and dying. The first group often slips into the second as disease progresses. I want to focus on those families providing unpaid informal care. More than three-quarters of those carers bereaved during Covid reported that they were not offered the care and support they needed, and Carers UK data suggests that one in three may be nearing breaking point. Pre pandemic, it was no better. The Motor Neurone Disease Association found that more than 75% of unpaid carers had not had a carer’s assessment and a third spend more than 100 hours a week caring. When caring for other conditions, the average hours are less, but more than 1 million people are providing 50 or more hours of care per week. Marie Curie estimated that there were 6.2 million carers in the UK in 2018 and 500,000 were looking after someone with a terminal illness, which is about 8% of all carers.

Most informal carers are not professionally trained, and of the 1 million people eligible for attendance allowance, it is estimated that about a third do not claim it. When someone is nearing dying, a prognosis of six months is impossible to provide with accuracy, so the DS1500 form for funding is sometimes filled in relatively late, leaving the financial burden on the family even greater. For many, the care of a person who is critically ill, whose recovery is unpredictable or who has been in intensive care is particularly difficult. These family carers need to be taught some basics of caring and they need to know who to call for immediate support 24/7. The current systems of even supporting them are not adequate.

Those millions of people providing care usually do it well and willingly, but they are exhausted and are becoming more exhausted as there seems to be less support available. What consideration is being given to creating eligibility for a total of up to one month’s paid leave from work for informal carers when someone is critically ill or dying? This could be leave taken flexibly as required for the individual circumstance. After all, we recognise maternity and paternity leave. Why do we not recognise carers’ leave?

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend refers to humility and he is right: we have all had to develop a stronger sense of humility in the face of this awful virus and this dreadful pandemic. It has taught us that, despite all our 21st-century healthcare systems, we are all vulnerable to its awful effects. His words are absolutely spot on. I repeat the statistic that 69.4% of adults across the UK have had the vaccine, because the overall story of the vaccine rollout has been one of incredible participation by the British public. Not only have I never been involved in anything quite so successful in my life but there are very few national projects anywhere in the world that have been as successful. I really applaud all communities in every part of Britain for the way in which they have stepped up to the vaccine. My noble friend is right that there are some communities in which those levels are not as high as they should be. That has led to higher transmission among younger people, and in a few cases that has led to severe disease among older people who, frankly, should have taken their vaccine. I urge everyone to step up to their opportunity.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

As the Minister, who has worked tirelessly during Covid, knows only too well, an outbreak anywhere can become an outbreak everywhere. Can he tell us how the UK plans to increase vaccine distribution globally through COVAX to control the pandemic and decrease the risk of further variants arising in countries with high rates of infection, particularly as the risk of vaccine-resistant variants will remain high for at least a decade?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the Tedros principle of us being safe only when we are all safe remains the most profound insight. The noble Baroness is entirely right: we must do more to try to help those in the developing world. The frustrating truth is that the world simply does not have enough capacity for the manufacture of these very complex and tricky substances. We are straining every sinew to try to deliver the 9 billion vaccines we need to deliver worldwide vaccination, but the rate of manufacturing is not as high as any of us would like. I take my hat off in particular to AstraZeneca, which has provided licences for the vaccine worldwide on a no-profit basis, but I also pay tribute to the other vaccine companies, which, despite what one might read in the press, are trying all they can to set up manufacturing sites all around the world. Progress is being made.

Alcohol Harm Commission: Report 2020

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Commission on Alcohol Harm 2020 ‘It’s everywhere’—alcohol’s public face and private harm, published on 14 September 2020.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I had the privilege of leading a group of 16 experts to investigate one of the most pressing issues of the day: the harm caused by alcohol. I extend my sincere thanks to each of those 16, who gave their time and expertise so generously in their dedication to reducing alcohol harm. The findings of the Commission on Alcohol Harm were stark. One cannot overstate the sheer scale of the harm caused by alcohol every day to individuals, those around them and society. Alcohol is linked to 80 deaths every day across the UK and, most worryingly, it kills people when they are young. Alcohol is responsible for more years of working life lost than the 10 most frequent cancers combined.

However, the commission found that alcohol harm extends beyond health. We heard a great deal about the impact on families: 200,000 children are estimated to live with an alcohol-dependent parent, making them five times more likely to develop eating disorders and three times as likely to consider suicide. Some children are harmed even before they are born. Exposure to alcohol in the womb can cause foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a lifelong developmental condition found in up to 17% of UK children.

The links between alcohol, violent crime and anti-social behaviour are strong. Alcohol fuels almost 40% of violent crimes and half of domestic violence. Drunk-driving causes almost 9,000 casualties and 260 deaths a year. Police Sergeant Mick Urwin told us that

“delivering a death message to a parent, brother, sister, son or daughter to inform them that someone has been killed by a drink driver is not something I ever got used to”.

The burden falls on all society, particularly public services. There are 1.26 million alcohol-related hospital admissions annually and alcohol costs the NHS £3.5 billion. The cost of alcohol-related crime is even higher, at £11.4 billion per annum. That is why sentencing to alcohol abstinence and monitoring is so important, with its high compliance rate allowing people to face and tackle their harmful drinking, and it has been shown to decrease repeat offending.

The extent of these harms is truly shocking but is no surprise, as alcohol is ubiquitous. That is why we titled the commission’s report It’s Everywhere—a quote from a witness. We heard how alcohol is all around us: at social gatherings, on TV, in supermarkets, card shops and the workplace, and at all times of day or night. People told us they could not escape from alcohol; “relentless” was a word we heard repeatedly. Although national consumption has fallen from 2004’s historical high, especially as more young people abstain, the increases in measures of harm and deaths persist.

Alcohol’s harm is often hidden in plain sight, leaving people to deal with it alone, unsupported. The stigma of harmful drinking makes people conceal their problem. Children instinctively understand that they are expected to keep quiet about their parents’ drinking. To quote another witness:

“Families and children like us didn’t and won’t discuss it for fear of being separated, being taken away from parents, being singled out ... feeling embarrassed, scared of repercussions and fear of retribution”.


The alcohol industry’s “personal responsibility” framing blames individuals for their drinking. Stigmatisation makes it harder to seek help. Blame lies within the product itself: alcohol is addictive. It can turn people’s lives upside down, as anyone listening to “The Archers” at the moment will know. It warrants careful regulation, hence the commission’s recommendations.

First, we call for an alcohol strategy. The last was almost 10 years ago. Revision is urgently needed—last year, alcohol deaths reached their highest level since records began. The updated strategy needs to include evidence-based policies to reduce the affordability, availability and marketing of alcohol. These tools, recommended by the World Health Organization, proved effective at tackling tobacco use. Let us look at each in turn.

Alcohol harm and price are directly linked. The alcohol duty system is inconsistent and perverse—white cider at 19p a unit feeds addiction. Affordability has grown significantly in the last four decades, driven by low prices in off-trade settings. Cuts to alcohol duty at the annual Budget have not helped—beer duty is now 21% lower than in 2012-13 according to the Institute of Alcohol Studies. We urgently need minimum unit pricing in England, as already introduced in Scotland and more recently in Wales. Tax should be proportionate to the harm caused.

The commission heard from witnesses how the constant availability of alcohol affects those who drink. One individual told us:

“My dad can’t help drinking. Every day we need bread, milk etc from the shop next to our house. When he goes in, the temptation is too much for him. It’s not his fault when it’s staring him in the face. Maybe if we didn’t live near a shop he wouldn’t be able to get drink as easily.”


Local authorities told us that they struggle to reduce availability under the current licensing regime. The UK Government could follow Scotland to allow local authorities to consider public health as a distinct licensing objective when assessing licensing applications.

Advertising and marketing set the tone for our relationship with alcohol. The alcohol industry spends hundreds of millions of pounds on advertising, much of which can be seen by children and vulnerable individuals, such as those with addiction. Children’s exposure to alcohol marketing makes them more likely to consume alcohol and to start consuming it at an earlier age. Opinion polling carried out for the Alcohol Health Alliance showed that 75% of the public support reducing children’s exposure to alcohol advertising. Many countries, such as France, restrict such marketing to better protect their populations. We should follow suit.

Consumers have a right to know what they are drinking. It is bizarre that currently there are fewer legal requirements for information on a bottle of wine than on a carton of orange juice. Unlike soft drinks, alcoholic drinks do not have to list their calories or sugar content or ingredients. Consumer information is grossly inadequate, as there is no statutory requirement for drinks to carry a health warning, warnings about alcohol in pregnancy, or the weekly guideline for low-risk consumption. Without label information, consumers are unaware of the risks and cannot make informed decisions.

Time does not allow me to cover the toll on the NHS and social care, where the burden of alcohol harm ultimately falls. Suffice it to remind your Lordships that alcohol is the leading risk factor for death, ill health and disability in 15 to 49 year-olds in England. It was causal in almost 12,000 cancers in 2015—that is 33 people a day—particularly cancers of the mouth, pharynx, oesophagus, larynx, breast, bowel and liver. It is also a factor in over 200 other diseases and injuries, including hypertension, heart disease, stroke, gastrointestinal disorders, brain damage and mental illness. Deaths from alcohol liver disease have increased 400% since 1970.

The Government have tackled tobacco harms and shown in their recent obesity strategy a willingness to take bold action to protect the public’s health. With an estimated 1.6 million adults in England having some degree of alcohol dependency, I hope that the Government will show the same boldness and heed our report’s recommendations.

Covid-19: One Year Report

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the National Mental Capacity Forum, which I chair, recently ran its eighth fast-track webinar during the pandemic. We called it “The good, the bad and the ugly”. I will focus on those three categories: good things we want to keep, bad things we should change and ugly things we must never see again.

The speed with which medical and public health research has been approved, instigated and reported shows that past bureaucratic systems can be abandoned. The speed of innovation has been impressive. The rapid return to clinical registers of doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff from retirement was commendable, but many were underutilised. Their knowledge and wisdom should be retained to mitigate shortages in NHS manpower by employing them to what they can do well to provide support to patients through availability for remote consultations and hundreds of other roles.

We should commend those who coped with the very difficult task of the terrible catalogue of deaths. Absolutely nobody wanted to see what we have seen. The bereaved will live with those memories for the rest of their lives. One of the greatest failings has been inappropriate rigidity and inflexibility over visiting when people were dying. We must balance risks and ensure that infection control and emotional support are achieved without compounding the anguish that so many have experienced. The inability to be with the person you love and to say goodbye has been awful. We never want to see it again. Blanket policies failed. The term DNAR, or do not resuscitate, is dangerously imprecise. The Care Quality Commission emphasises respect, open discussion and clarity over CPR.

Many of our simplest public health measures have been far too slow to roll out, compounded by mixed messaging. As a Bevan commissioner in Wales, I supervised the Distance Aware project—a simple prompt now adopted wholesale in Northern Ireland. We need to remain distance aware, probably for years to come, using the protective function of face masks and handwashing as basic infection control. Westminster must work better with the devolved Administrations for recovery.

We must also avoid vaccine complacency, maintain infection control and embrace new ways of working through the rapid rollout of technology, with working, voting, consultations and even mental capacity assessments online. But online living risks promoting loneliness, which has become an enormous problem. Safe meeting places, such as the hospitality sector, sports facilities or the myriad voluntary sector support services, are an important part of our infrastructure. In doing all this we must tackle head-on inappropriate use of alcohol and recognise the associated harms with its links to violence. Nutrition policies need to change to recognise the links between malnutrition, obesity and loss of life years.

We will never go back to where we were. In easing restrictions, consistent UK-wide messages based on evidence are essential. We face difficult decisions. We need to tackle social inequities far better, respect local and devolved services, which know their own communities, and build resilience for the next generation.

Folic Acid

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I think my noble friend alludes to the rollout of the vaccine, which has been the consummate preventive medicine programme that the country has ever seen. It is, I hope, an inflection point in the whole country’s approach to its healthcare. We have for too long emphasised late-stage, heavy- duty interventions, and we have not focused enough on preventive early-stage interventions. Folic acid is a really good example, as are the vaccine and fluoridation, and the kinds of population health measures we hope to bring in will address all of those.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

I too commend the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for his tenacity on this important aspect. Do the Government recognise that 90% of women of childbearing age have low folate levels? If these were corrected by the dietary addition of folate to flour, we could see up to a 58% decrease in neural tube defects. These are massive numbers and cannot be ignored. The clock is still ticking and there are women getting pregnant today who have low folate levels.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness’s figures are not quite the same as the ones I have in front of me. The mandatory fortification of bread flour with folic acid in Australia resulted in a 14.4% overall decrease in NTDs—although that is still a really important number, and if we are running at 1,000 a year in the UK, 50% of which are due to unplanned pregnancies, there are clearly important grounds for this measure to be considered seriously.