Sugary Drinks Tax

Mark Field Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 106651 relating to a tax on sugary drinks.

The Petitions Committee has scheduled the debate to coincide with the publication of the report by the Select Committee on Health about childhood obesity. I did not have the advantage of seeing that report when I drafted my speech, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) will enlighten us further if she catches your eye later, Mr Hamilton. It is a great pleasure to see many members of that Committee here.

The petition was prompted by real concern about the health problems that are being caused by rising levels of obesity, particularly among children. Having looked at the matter, there is no doubt in my mind that we face a very serious situation. I am lucky to be one of a fortunate generation that saw advances in housing and sanitation, and mass vaccination programmes that eradicated or reduced the incidence of many diseases from which children used to suffer. However, we are now in danger of raising a generation who will have a lower life expectancy than that of their parents. The reason for that is down to diet, with too much fat and too much sugar—combined with too little exercise, yes, but it is mostly about diet.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

If the right hon. Gentleman is so eager to get in, I will give way.

[Mark Field]

I am eager to get in on that point, because I think it is rather facilely simplistic to suggest that any reduction in life expectancy is just down to diet. I accept that that could be one of the factors, but, in looking at this report and others like it, it is important that we take an evidence-based approach. Diet is a factor in reduced life expectancy in some parts of the country, but it is by no means the only factor.

[Helen Jones]

The right hon. Gentleman will learn that diet is actually the major factor. I will go on to say a little more about that later. He is right that it is difficult to talk about the subject without seeming like a killjoy, so I will fess up right at the beginning: I enjoy a glass of wine with my meals, although I try to restrict it to weekends; I am martyr to my cravings for chocolate; and, like many of us in this House, I could do with losing a bit of weight. However, we should not let our own frailties put us off tackling what I believe to be a real health emergency.

I have seen a huge change in diet, particularly in children’s diets, over my lifetime. When I was growing up, pop was a treat that we got occasionally, and we usually got a bottle of it between several of us. Sweets were bought by our dads on payday. If we were out playing—most children did play out in those days—and we came in hungry, we got bread and butter and a drink of water. Now, thanks to a huge change in lifestyle, the wider availability of products and some heavy marketing to children, the situation has changed. Many adults and most of our children are not meeting the proper dietary requirements. We eat too much saturated fat and too much sugar—both added sugar, and sugar in fruit juices, honey and similar products.

[Mark Field]

As the father of two young children aged seven and four, I entirely endorse what the hon. Lady has to say about the prevalence of treats for today’s youngsters compared with that which our generation grew up with. Does she accept, however, that the issues here are the responsibility of parents and of the companies who produce such goods? Many of those companies have shown a level of responsibility, and the average size of confectionery such as the Mars bar has fallen as time has gone by. There is more information on all such products about the amount of fat and sugar that they contain. In many ways, we are living in an age of more responsible and more informed consumers, both young and old. That is where the responsibility lies, and that responsibility has been put into place to a large extent—

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions should be kept brief, and that they should be questions.

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[Helen Jones]

That is right. I have already said that clearer labelling has a role to play, but the Government need to understand and recognise the link between obesity and food poverty, which is not—before anyone misquotes me—to say that all poor people are obese or that all obese people are poor. The children who are most at risk are concentrated in the most deprived areas of the country. The same is true of adults. Figures provided to me by the Library show that there is a stark division. For instance, 32.7% of adults in Hartlepool are obese; in the Chilterns, it is 17.7%. In Barnsley, 35% of people are obese; in Cambridge, it is 14.7%.

The noble Lord Prior recently said in the other place that he found it puzzling that obesity is growing while people are using food banks. Let me try to explain it simply to him. If people live in an area where shops do not sell reasonably priced food, fruit and veg, and they cannot afford the bus fare into town, they are more likely to buy cheap, fatty products. If people are fuel-poor, it is difficult to cook healthy meals, as it is if they are time-poor. I have just said at a public engagement event that there are women in my constituency who are working two or three part-time jobs, trying to make ends meet. Most poor families are good at managing their budgets, but if they do not have time to cook and are worried about waste, they are more likely to buy easy things that can be cooked quickly—we need to recognise that. I would do the same in that situation, and it is why we need to invest more in preventive measures and to subsidise healthy foods, rather than unhealthy foods.

If we look at the detail of the Chancellor’s autumn statement, however, the public health grant will continue to fall. Some 25% of the grant goes on sexual health services, and 30% goes on drug and alcohol services, which are demand-led statutory services that cannot be cut. If we add the child measurement programme, child medical examinations and health protection, there is not much left over. That is why the Local Government Association has said

“councils don’t have enough…to do the preventive work needed to tackle one of the biggest challenges we face.”

The Government also need to look carefully at what has happened to their obesity strategy. The strategy was launched with great fanfare in 2011, but since then, as the National Obesity Forum has said,

“little has been heard of the strategy”.

The National Obesity Forum has asked for a “much more determined approach”. Even the Change4Life programme, which does not address obesity but helps to prevent people from becoming obese in the first place, has found its budget cut. We have heard much about the public health responsibility deal, which is currently under review. I hope the Government will seriously look at the deal, because all the indications are that, as presently constituted, it is not working.

Simon Capewell, professor of public health and policy at Liverpool University, called the public health responsibility deal a “predictable failure” and

“a successful strategy for food companies who wanted to maximise profits.”

It is right to work with the industry as one strand of our approach, but it is not right to give industry the final say on what happens because, as the Health Committee said in the last Parliament,

“those with a financial interest must not be allowed to set the agenda for health improvement.”

We need a much tougher responsibility deal.

[Mark Field]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Helen Jones]

No, I will finish now if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me. He has made several interventions, and he can make a speech later.

[Mark Field]

Do you want a debate?

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Mark Pawsey]

rose—

[Mark Field]

rose—

[Dr Wollaston]

In tandem! I am spoiled for choice.

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[Mark Field]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that one concern that some of us have about a tax on sugary drinks is that although it seems an attractive idea as a one-off, it would set a precedent? There would then be moves to outlaw discounting, impose portion sizes and implement similar rules. [Interruption.] Many of us believe in the idea of freedom and the responsibility of the consumer, and do not like the idea of the Government imposing that sort of change.

[Dr Wollaston]

In an ideal world, I agree, it would be nice not to have to do any of that, but I return to the point about whether the Government also have a responsibility for the health of the nation’s children. Should the Government step back? Should any of us feel that it is acceptable to condemn one in four—a quarter—of the most disadvantaged children in Britain to a lifetime of ill health? If we can do something simply to nudge people a different way, should we not consider the possibilities, and ask how different those children’s life chances could be? As I said, such a tax would not be regressive because there is always an easier, untaxed alternative. We are talking not about telling people that they cannot have a product that they enjoy but about nudging them to choose a healthier one.

There is an interesting phenomenon whereby education, for example, is sometimes taken up by the people in society who are already healthier, which can inadvertently end up widening the health inequality gap. We should target measures to help those who are suffering the most harm. As for this being regressive, look at who is suffering the most harm. Is my right hon. Friend happy with the situation as it stands?

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[Dr Wollaston]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but the point is that we wanted to respond to the issue about whether a sugar tax is regressive. It is much more challenging to use a direct replacement for the sugar, which would mean zero sugar for those kinds of products. That was partly why we took that view.

However, the approach that we recommend for the kind of products that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned is one of reformulation. During the last decade, there has been a successful programme of reformulating salt within our processed foods, but such a change takes time, because we have to adjust the nation’s palate gradually. Yes, we can make bigger step changes if we replace part of the sugar in one go, but there is sometimes something about the chemistry of sugar within cookery that means a sugar substitute does not do the same job. We wanted a tax where a sugar substitute did the same job as sugar, in effect.

I am confident that reformulation will be part of the Government’s response, because there is clear evidence that it works. Having said that, we know that it works better when there is some teeth to it, so I urge the Minister to go further than the responsibility deal and have something with real teeth. Things worked better when we had the Food Standards Agency and a bit of a stick in the background to make such changes happen, and industry wants a level playing field.

[Mark Field]

It is only fair that we give some credit to the industry, as my hon. Friend has done, particularly for the changes that have been made in relation to salt products. However, it seems to me somewhat insidious that, as we heard in an earlier contribution, the financial interests are being questioned, as though health professionals, who are often well funded by public funding, did not have a financial interest in this particular debate, as well as—[Interruption.]

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mark Field]

A significant number of health charities also have a big financial interest in this debate, and it is right that that interest should be balanced against those with clear financial interests in the industry.

[Fabian Hamilton (in the Chair)]

Order.