Advertising Standards Authority

Debate between Jim Shannon and John Glen

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. She raises other issues, which I hope the Minister will pick up on in his response.

To return to my case, after the independent review process, the only avenue remaining is expensive judicial review. Dr Burns-Hill was referred to trading standards in January this year, three and a half years after the ruling, but only heard from trading standards today— as a result, I believe, of the tabling of this debate. That referral is only on grounds on non-compliance, despite my constituent asking to be referred since the original ruling in 2012 and reiterating that request to them in January and September 2013. Would the Minister consider an option for an advertiser to require a referral to trading standards after independent review, who would then conduct their own investigation?

Secondly, I am concerned about the depth of the ASA’s technical expertise. In October 2015, Lord Smith of Finsbury, the chair of the ASA, said in the other place that in 2014 the ASA had used expert support in only 16 out of 900 cases. My constituent strives to reach the highest professional standards, and is a member of several professional bodies. Because of her significant experience in the healthcare sector, she is well aware that individuals with PhDs can call themselves “Dr” without having to qualify expressly that they are not medical doctors. That is true even in hospital settings, where, for example, holders of PhDs in public health and psychology often work.

I believe there is a concern that the ASA did not pay sufficient attention to established academic practice, and, indeed, to the codes of professional healthcare bodies. I was told only recently that it consulted such bodies. That fact appears nowhere in the public ruling, and the evidence from the consultations has not been published. My constituent was put in the invidious position of respecting the authority of those bodies in relation to how she presented her professional and academic qualifications, and being confronted with the opaque authority of the ASA, which initially demanded that she use a completely non-standard way of conveying her qualifications and did not use the title “Dr”, as was her right.

An advertiser without the tenacity of my constituent would probably have passively accepted the substandard—and subsequently adjusted—ruling of the ASA, the suggested remedy for which was to include the phrase “doctorate in healthcare” throughout her website and on her business cards. If the ASA did consult on the established professional and academic conventions for displaying qualifications, why was the evidence of those consultations not made available and cited specifically in the judgment? If the ASA is not seen to make use of readily available expertise in such an important area as academia, it is difficult for it to retain its full credibility as a self-regulating body. Will the Minister require the ASA to publish when it has drawn on external advice, what that advice is, and by whom it was provided? That would surely be a sensible step to improve the authority and credibility of the ASA in such specialist matters.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising what is clearly an important personal issue in his constituency. Many of us have had cause to have dealings with the ASA, and, all too often, have seen it go far beyond the reach intended for it. No doubt it does good work in rooting out misleading advertisers, but are there not occasions on which it goes too far? I hope that the Minister will assure us tonight that it possible to achieve a balance between credibility and responding to constituents’ concerns. If we can achieve that balance, we can do better.

[John Glen]

The purpose of this debate is not to undermine the ASA—obviously, I am raising a very specific case—but I believe that its credibility is at stake, and that there are sensible steps that it can take to improve the transparency of its decisions and the way in which it represents them.

For my constituent Dr Burns-Hill, it is too late. She is left feeling aggrieved, because she had an uncertain basis for action given the opaque authority of the ASA, which required a remedy that did not fit her understanding of established academic and professional conventions. It is very difficult for her to have confidence in the ASA, given its apparent lack of relevant expertise in its dealings with her. I recognise that there is a difference between the academic recognition of a qualification and the implications of the marketing of that qualification to lay prospective consumers, and I recognise that the ASA’s role is to examine those matters. However, my constituent does not recognise the right of the ASA unilaterally to require an individual to adopt a non-standard use of post-nominals, when someone could work in a hospital and use the title “Dr” without the need to qualify it, if they were the holder of a PhD.

I am grateful to the ASA, and in particular to Craig Jones, the communications director, for their engagement with me and my constituents and for their detailed responses to date. They have sought to answer my questions and address the case as far as possible. However, I have raised this matter today on the Floor of the House as my constituent still feels aggrieved and besmirched. I want to give satisfaction to my constituent on this matter and I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to address the specific points I have raised. I would also be grateful if he would use the authority of his office to facilitate a meeting between the ASA and Innovate, the first set of constituents. I very much look forward to hearing his response.

ISIL in Syria

Debate between Jim Shannon and John Glen

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I rise to speak in this debate with a degree of apprehension—apprehension that I am sure everyone who has contributed felt—about the implications and outcomes of what I hope we will this evening collectively mandate our brave forces to engage in, but I also speak with absolute clarity in my conscience that supporting this motion is the right thing to do.

In Daesh, we face an enemy that will not ever be willing to sit down and discuss its grievances, and will not bargain with the west through intermediaries, because it does not have any. Why is that? It is because it despises us simply for who we are. When we meet an enemy like that, we cannot back off. We cannot cite past misjudgments in Iraq, the nature of the Saudi arms trade, or the lack of progress in disrupting the oil trade as justification for not supporting this motion. We must realise that this evil force does threaten our security. It cannot be contained in some far-off land as we continue to close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears and imagine it will go away; it will not, and Daesh will not.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The decision for us in the House tonight is this: to protect our citizens in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the decision must be taken to go to Raqqa and ensure that those involved in the campaign to organise attacks in France, Belgium and elsewhere are stopped, that the source of money is stopped, and that Raqqa is taken over and the people who live there have their freedom and their liberty.

[John Glen]

Not for the first time, I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. As we saw in Paris, as our domestic security leaders tell us, and as the many desperate refugees flooding into continental Europe testify, the implications of this evil are real, and I do not believe any realistic alternative course of action exists that properly deals with the nature of this threat.

My concern is this: we must accept that to defeat this evil we need a grand strategy covering humanitarian, military, political and security dimensions, and this will likely require more time than many of us, and perhaps many of our constituents, want to contemplate. Special precision-strike Tornadoes will not be enough. We will need to embrace uncomfortable compromises with Iran, Russia and Assad himself.

Syria will not become benign in its outlook until a comprehensive long-term political solution is found that demonstrates acute sensitivity to many conflicting but co-existing outlooks. Yet this political solution does not have a hope of success until we realise that some enemies of our way of life and freedoms cannot be hidden from. They cannot, and will not, become less lethal. They will not diminish unless we take military action to degrade them—a task we cannot justifiably outsource to our French and American allies.

Let us be clear: although I believe it is true that air power will not defeat this enemy by itself, it will not be defeated on the ground alone either. We will need a co-ordinated approach involving an Arab coalition, NATO, Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, and the Iraqi and Syrian armies, but our airstrikes are instrumental to our task of defeating this evil.

I want to address the argument that bombing Syria will not stop jihadi bombers already in the UK or France. No, I do not believe it will, but that is to misunderstand the comprehensive strategy that must be employed, and is now being employed. Special forces, the police and the intelligence services are well positioned to prevent these atrocities, but the severe risk we currently face is unlikely to diminish if we fail to support today’s motion. If we fail to act, the evil heart pumping life into this death cult will remain healthy. Finally, we must not underestimate the scale of the humanitarian crisis facing Syria, or the time and resources needed to help bring order to that country.

I have thought very carefully about these matters. There is much I do not know—I concede that—but my conscience is clear. We must act and begin the long, intense, delicate and difficult process of facing up to a profound evil. I support the motion and our Prime Minister’s compelling case.