Food Advertising (Protection of Children from Targeting)

Kirstene Hair Excerpts

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

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prevent the marketing and advertising of food that does not meet certain nutritional requirements from being targeted at children.

We are all united in ensuring that children have the best possible start in life, and that includes ensuring that they have a healthy start. Sadly, for all too many young people, that is not the case—and the problem is even worse in more deprived groups. Take Scotland, where in 2015-16 the most deprived areas had a 16% rate of childhood obesity, compared with 12% in the least deprived. In fact, nearly 30% of children are at risk of obesity or of being overweight in Scotland. However, this issue affects the whole United Kingdom, with one in five children starting primary school obese or overweight. According to the Centre for Social Justice, obesity will cost our economy £50 billion by 2050.

Of course, we all know the cause of these shocking figures. Bluntly, there are far too many children in this country who are not eating enough of the food that they need and too much of the food that they do not need. Not only does this affect their day-to-day lives, but the implications for later life cannot be overestimated, not least given that obesity is the biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking—a statistic that very few are aware of. There is no simple solution to this, and no silver bullet for this growing problem with childhood obesity. While I warmly welcome the Government’s recently announced consultation, it certainly cannot be left only to Acts of Parliament and regulations from Government Departments. That will not be sufficient and would not deliver the results we so desperately need. The driving force must come from individual households—parents and young people—making the right choices to enjoy healthy lifestyles.

But there are steps that would help, and it would be a failing of this House not to match fine rhetoric with decisive action. Schemes such as the Daily Mile, started in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), contribute to helping young people to get active and stay fit. Rolling this out across the country is absolutely the right thing to do. Equally, the Government’s bold step to implement a tax on sugary drinks has not only led to increased revenue to help to tackle obesity but sparked change in the industry as it seeks to reformulate recipes.

Yet we cannot ignore the pervasive influence of advertising across the wide range of media, given that these varying media channels have become such an important part of our daily lives. There are proposals to ban junk food advertising on TV before 9 pm.  Such a proposal may have its merits, but we need to be careful about the potential unintended consequences of such a blunt policy proposal and make sure that we maintain a level playing field between online and TV advertising. The original regulations, reviewed in 2010 by Ofcom, found a 37% drop in children’s exposure to junk food advertising, with particular success in the reduction for younger children, at 52%—particularly important given their greater likelihood of being influenced by adverts. So the policy is backed up by evidence.

We must recognise that advertising regulations are now out of date. They must reflect the changed ways in which we receive media and the changed viewing patterns of children and young people. Current broadcast regulations ban junk food adverts only where the programmes, and channels, are specifically for children’s entertainment. But what of family programming? Nearly 3 billion junk food adverts impacted on children through after-school television in 2015. Fifty-nine per cent. of adverts broadcast over family viewing time would be banned from children’s TV, but do we not expect children to see them during family shows such as “The Voice”, “Coronation Street” or “Hollyoaks”? This is a loophole clearly being exploited that must be closed. The high ratings of these shows mean that despite the fact that nearly 1 million children might watch “The Voice”, because they do not make up 25% of the audience, it is not deemed a children’s show. If we reduced the percentage threshold needed to mark a programme as appealing to children from 25%, it would reduce their exposure to junk food adverts at all times.

We know how sophisticated online targeting through platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and online games has become. Despite many ongoing issues with protecting children online, I was pleased to see Google launch YouTube Kids—a safe place for child-friendly videos. That is a recognition, albeit a small one, that online publishers have just as much work to do as broadcasters in protecting children’s health. There should also be, for online publishers, a very straightforward ban on junk food promotions for children and young people.

I have heard the argument that advertising does not have an impact on obesity and that therefore the Government should not intervene, but that is a red herring. A good illustration of this is the money spent on advertising in 2015. Only 1.2% of all food and non-alcoholic drink advertising was spend for advertising vegetables, while 22.2% was used for advertising cakes, biscuits, confectionery and ice cream. If producers did not see significant return for their expenditure, it simply would not be spent. Why, if advertising is such a distraction, do companies spend a quarter of a billion pounds on it and lobby so vociferously for no extension of advertising restrictions? Focus groups categorically suggest that children not only remember the adverts they see in detail but that they influence what they pester their parents for.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am not calling for a ban on all junk food advertising—that would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut—but we cannot ignore the fact that advertising is contributing to childhood obesity and that existing loopholes must be closed. I do not suggest that this will end childhood obesity. It is far too complex a challenge for such an easy solution. The Government are absolutely right to bring forward a whole range of solutions to tackle this issue, and a cross-departmental approach is exactly what we need. We have a responsibility to give our children the best possible chance at the start of their life, and this Bill, which seeks to avoid such direct targeting, is part of delivering that best start.