Health and Care Bill

Debate between Alun Cairns and Greg Smith

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

I will be as quick as I can, Mr Deputy Speaker. The point underlying my amendments to Lords amendments 123 to 127 is relatively straightforward and simple. I heard what the Minister said in his opening remarks, but I feel that if we act in a way that impacts an industry—in this case, UK broadcasters—as severely as the advertising restrictions will, and we are talking about a £200 million a year loss to our great British broadcasters, it is a matter of fairness and equity that we should give them enough of a lead-in time, enough notice and enough ability to adapt, remodel their services and find a way of surviving, to put it bluntly.

I have spoken before in the House about the fact that I do not agree with the nanny state and telling advertisers what they can and cannot advertise. The Lords amendments that we are considering, and my amendments to them, are very much about the implementation of a policy, and about giving British broadcasters—public service and fully commercial ones alike—a fighting chance. It would be much fairer to give broadcasters at least a year to comply from the point at which Ofcom publishes its guidance and puts it in the public domain. Broadcasters and advertisers will have to go through a lot of processes once this Bill receives Royal Assent, and that cuts the time that they have to put in place new policies, compliance checks and mechanisms to comply with the legislation. Two months on from Royal Assent, Ofcom will not even have got its statutory powers in this regard, and so will not even be able to start work with the Advertising Standards Authority and other bodies on the detail, and the ways and means of implementation.

[Alun Cairns]

I strongly support the amendments that my hon. Friend has tabled. Does he agree that the definition of some of the products, and the work that needs to be done, needs to undergo significant consultation, because of the way in which the efficacy, strength and merits of the policy will be judged?

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that point, as the argument that I am making is very much that these things take time. Two months on from Royal Assent, Ofcom gets its statutory powers. Only then can it start the consultation, and the work of defining the restrictions on advertising that come under the broad categories in the Bill. Let us assume that two months on from Royal Assent is some time in the next couple of months. There would then be 10-week or perhaps three-month consultations to get the detail right, for a go-live date of 1 January 2023. That does not give our broadcasters sufficient time to put in place their processes, remodel their whole service, and find a way of working when they are so many hundreds of millions of pounds down on their operating models.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Alun Cairns and Greg Smith

Report stage
Monday 22nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. If he will let me make a little more progress, I think he will find that my amendments seek to put a harsher perspective of this on the online platforms, rather than letting anyone off anything whatsoever. I repeat that my fundamental position is one of opposition to the nanny state and restrictions, but recognising that if the Government are going to push these restrictions forward, we have to have fairness and parity across broadcast and online sectors, otherwise there will be loopholes, things will fall through the cracks and the Government will not achieve their objectives.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

I certainly support the argument that my hon. Friend is putting forward. Does he feel that the Government have found themselves in a position where they feel they need to react because of the genuine obesity crisis among young people and this would seem to be the highest-profile publicity effort, but that really we should be focusing on the evidence of the case and the argument, so that we can actually have an impact on it, rather than steal the headline that might just last a couple of days?

[Greg Smith]

My right hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head: if we are to tackle obesity as a country, we have to look at the most successful outcomes. Fundamentally, I believe those to be ones of education, ensuring that parents are empowered to be able to make the best decisions for their children and ensuring that people are empowered to come to the right choices for themselves. The point about these amendments is to ensure that we are not giving a green light to one side while harshly penalising another for hosting these adverts.

The nub of the point is that the broadcasters will, in effect, have to pre-clear any advertising that is put on to their platform and there will be very harsh penalties, leading right up to the point of revocation of their broadcast licence, if they fail to do this. By contrast, although the Bill puts significant restrictions on the online platforms, they are not put through that same test. They are not put through the same harsh restrictions and requirements that are broadcasters are. This is especially important when we consider recent evidence that has been put into the public domain. The Advertising Standards Authority recently drew considerable attention to the mass flouting of the rules by online influencers across many sectors. This House’s Select Committee on Work and Pensions made an important point about online regulation in a report in March this year on protecting pension savers. It said:

“Regulators appear powerless to hold online firms to account”—

for online advertisements—

“in the same way they would be able to for traditional media.”

We need to bear that in mind as we consider this Bill, because if current regulations do not work in that field, I fear that the regulations on online providers proposed in this Bill will not either.

I offer these amendments as a call to those on the Treasury Bench, including the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)—an excellent Minister who will consider these points carefully—to rethink the practicalities of what we are saying to the broadcast and online sectors. If the Government are intent on pushing this forward, I ask them to find that parity that ensures that broadcasters are not unfairly penalised. Great British broadcasters—ITV, Channel 4, Channel Five, Sky—already produce some incredible educational programming about diet, cooking, wellbeing and lifestyle. It would be horrendous for us to cut off their lifeline of funding.