Food Advertising (Protection of Children from Targeting)

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Yesterday, after the urgent question, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), why children from the poorest areas are disproportionately among the fattest, and I suggested that it was not because they watched more adverts. He responded that it might be the case that they watched more adverts. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) that a piece of work needs to be done before the Bill proceeds, to establish the exact role of advertising in making our children so much fatter. The reality is that children have always been the target of such advertising. She will be too young to recall, but I certainly remember the Milkybar kid, whose unique selling attraction was that the Milkybars were going to be on him.

My hon. Friend suggested a much more profitable avenue for our attention. She pointed out that by the time children came to school, one in five was already too fat. We will have those children in school for the best part of 15 years, for five days a week and 40 weeks a year. It would be staggeringly unproductive if we did not use that time to sufficiently exercise them to make them thinner. I suggest that if we have not the political will to do that, advertising is not going to do the job.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Kirstene Hair, Kerry McCarthy, Conor McGinn, Fiona Bruce, Andrew Selous, Stuart C. McDonald, John Lamont, Paul Masterton, Mr Alister Jack, Jamie Stone, Mr Alistair Carmichael and Bill Grant present the Bill.

Kirstene Hair accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 November, and to be printed (Bill 237).

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful to you for hearing a point of order at this stage in our proceedings. You may be aware that it is reported in The Times today that the United States Government have sought to interfere in the contents of the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on United Kingdom involvement in rendition. If that report is true, it is a matter of the greatest and gravest importance for the House. I can think of no precedent for a foreign power seeking to interfere in the workings of our Committees. What protection can you give to the Committees of the House to ensure that they are allowed to do their work in the way that they are mandated to by us? Have you had any indications from the Government about their intention to bring the House up to speed and make us fully informed in relation to that matter?

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I certainly do not seek to cavil at what he has said, because I am familiar with the thrust of the argument and concern that he is advocating to the House. I will just say that the Committee is not in fact a Committee of the House; it is a statutory Committee, in a slightly different category to all the other Committees to which we regularly refer. Nevertheless, I have heard what he said. I have no knowledge of the matter, and I have not myself read the report to which he refers.

If memory serves me correctly, the Committee is chaired by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who is a very senior and respected Member of the House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is well aware of the remit and autonomy of the Committee. If he felt that his Committee was being interfered with in any way, I rather doubt that he would be backwards in coming forwards. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) is himself a former senior member of the coalition Government. He will know very well, I am sure, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, and he might wish to approach him for a brief conversation, not on the detail of the report, but about his concern. If that does not satisfy him, I have a feeling that I will be hearing from him again.