Communications Act 2003 (Restrictions on the Advertising of Less Healthy Food) (Effective Date) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Allan of Hallam]

That this House regrets that the Communications Act 2003 (Restrictions on the Advertising of Less Healthy Food) (Effective Date) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (SI 2022/1311) will delay for 33 months, until 1 October 2025, the implementation of the ban on advertising less healthy foods and drinks before the 9pm watershed on television, on radio and on online media.

Relevant documents: 24th Report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Special attention drawn to the instrument

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, the increasing level of obesity represents a clear and present danger to the health of our nation. I will not recite all the issues caused by obesity, but I direct anyone wanting to learn more to the Obesity Health Alliance.

Recognising this risk, Parliament has agreed on a number of tools to try to arrest, and ideally reverse, that increase, including restrictions on advertising less healthy foods which were agreed to in the Health and Care Act 2022. But while Parliament can will the ends as well as the means, in the shape of the proposed new advertising restrictions, it depends on the Executive to bring them into effect and to do so in a timely fashion, and yet we are faced here with the Government telling us that they cannot implement what we have asked them to do for the best part of two years. This makes the Government look powerless to respond to a public health crisis that needs action right now, and their defence seems to be that they are not impotent but merely incompetent.

We can expect the Minister’s response to explain the challenges of all the different processes that they have to go through to introduce the restrictions and why these all take time. While I am generally sympathetic to the need to regulate properly by consulting with affected organisations, I am afraid that my response on this occasion has to be that my heart bleeds custard for the Government. The need to go through these various steps was entirely predictable, as these measures have been under discussion since 2018 and were formally consulted on after the Government’s much-heralded tackling obesity strategy of 2020. With the additional delay proposed today, we are looking at these measures taking seven years to get from farm to table. The Minister can have a go at explaining this, but I hope that he will not try too hard to defend it.

I expect to hear about the challenges with Ofcom’s workload. Again, I certainly understand that it is stretched by all the new work coming under the Online Safety Bill, but this delay on these regulations now risks making matters worse. It would have been better to have had this all in place before the wave of new demands comes along. I fear that we may be back here again being told that, unfortunately, there has to be a further delay while more important online safety measures take up all of Ofcom’s bandwidth. We need to ask if there is more to this delay, and if the Government are backsliding on their commitments to anti-obesity measures; they are happy to announce and reannounce them but less willing to get the job done.

We can see that there are mixed views about giving advice to people among leading Conservative Party figures, which we might describe as, “Private nannies good, nanny state bad”. But this is not a nanny-state measure, as it does not stop anyone buying or selling any food products. Rather, it is aimed at changing the environment in which people make their own choices, so that they will be, to borrow language from election law, free from coercion and undue influence.

We also have to ask cui bono—who benefits—from any policy shift, and I hope that the Minister can tell us today who from the food or advertising industries has been lobbying for the delay. If we want to consider cui malo—who is harmed—we find that the Government have just not done their homework to look into the effects of the delay, as pointed out by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in its 24th report, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, refers in her Motion. The Explanatory Memorandum tells us in paragraph 12.3:

“A full Impact Assessment has not been prepared … because this instrument is being made only to delay the implementation date of the advertising restrictions by 33 months.”


Only 33 months—just in time for the third birthday of children being born today, whose lifetime health chances will be set during those critical early years. I wonder how long the Minister thinks a delay in legislation has to be for its impact to be worth assessing.

Even without the Government’s assessment, I do not think that any serious commentator would agree that there is no harm from this delay, as it means that there will be a longer period in which people trying to make healthier choices are exposed to messages pushing them in the opposite direction. We may not be able to quantify precisely the effect of those messages, but the promoters of less healthy foods are not stupid; they advertise only because it helps them to sell more.

This debate is obviously an opportunity for us to have a go at the Government for appearing to back-track on a measure which they said they were committed to and have previously agreed is in the public interest. I look forward to hearing other noble Lords kick their balls into this open goal.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have reassured noble Lords that the Government are committed to this overarching aim through greater restrictions on advertising less healthy foods and reducing childhood obesity through a number of well-thought-out measures to encourage the consumption of healthier foods.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, gave us an important reminder that we need to think holistically about our entire relationship with food, including eating disorders as well as obesity. That is helpful, and something I am sure we will return to.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, reminded us of other regulations in this area which seem to be having some success: the soft drinks levy and the information provided on restaurant menus. My noble friend Lady Walmsley’s institutional memory is extraordinarily helpful in explaining much of what has already been debated and agreed, undermining the Government’s argument that so much still needs to be done. The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, was right to criticise the process of presenting regulations, and I suggest a carrot and stick approach to the Minister. The carrot is a friendly, gentle debate in the Moses Room and the stick is to come here for another ball-kicking exercise.

Finally, on the substance of the regulation, the Minister has explained that the Government’s real goal is reformulation. This could be done perhaps more urgently than the Government are suggesting if they put their mind to it. If we can shift from being tomato eaters to turnip eaters in the space of a few months, I think we can shift from being unhealthy burger eaters to healthier burger eaters in less than two years. With that and the other contributions, I seek the leave of the House to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.