Junk Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)]

Child obesity remains one of the top public health challenges on my desk and for the Government. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) on securing this debate through the offices of the Backbench Business Committee. I also thank the Health Committee for its ongoing inquiry into child obesity. Its Chair is not able to be here today, but she has a great personal interest in this subject. Ministers always say that debates are wide-ranging, useful and interesting, but this one certainly has been—it has been much wider than the title of the debate. We have learned a number of things, not least the shadow Minister’s new year activities. She has learned about the work of the pop band the Editors and advergames in the last week alone, and it sounds like one of her new year’s resolutions is to look into Candy Crush—the things you learn here!

As colleagues who are still here will be aware, the latest figures continue to show that our childhood obesity rates remain too high. About a third of children leaving school are overweight or obese. I and the Government will not accept that. In addition, evidence shows that the deprivation gap in obesity prevalence between children in the most and least deprived areas continues to widen. Again, I definitely will not accept that. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made that point well. When she first came to office, the Prime Minister spoke on the steps of Downing Street about the burning injustices she sees in this country. This is undoubtedly one of the pillars of burning injustice in Britain today.

The gap continues into adulthood: obese children are much more likely to become obese adults, which increases their risk of developing serious diseases, as we have heard, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and, of particular interest to me as the cancer Minister, more than 13 types of cancer—I suspect that is underplaying it—including bowel and breast cancer. The shadow Minister and I share a great interest in that subject, having chaired the all-party group on breast cancer for many years together. Obesity is also a major risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, as a number of hon. Members said. I see this as a huge challenge to individuals’ health and wellbeing, and a huge cost to the NHS and the country. Obesity-related ill health is estimated to cost the NHS some £5 billion a year—again, I suspect that that underplays it.

There is no denying that obesity is a complex, far-reaching problem. It will sadly not be solved by one action alone, as pretty much all hon. Members said—my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash said that in opening the debate. Neither will it be solved overnight. It is a tanker to be turned around. We launched our childhood obesity plan in August 2016, informed by the latest evidence and research in the area. It challenges us all—the national Government, local government, businesses, the NHS, schools and families—to play our role in reducing childhood obesity levels. There are many parts of the jigsaw, and many players we need to tackle, including the healthiness of the food we are eating, how much we are eating—portion size—how active we are and the environment we live in. Of course, marketing plays an important part.

As part of the plan, we introduced two key measures to challenge the food and drink industry to improve the healthiness of the food children eat every day, and those policies are already showing positive signs. The soft drinks industry levy, which is set to become law in April, has already seen almost half of the soft drink market reformulate its sugary soft drinks to include less sugar. Companies such as the maker of Lucozade and Ribena —I will be visiting it later this week to see more detail—and Tesco have led the way by removing millions of tonnes of sugar. That is a crucial step forward in improving our children’s health, as the data shows us that sugary soft drinks are the main contributor of sugar in our children’s diets.

[Kerry McCarthy]

This is slightly off-topic, but Lucozade has been named public villain No. 2 after Pringles, in terms of its plastic packaging. The plastic sleeves around the outsides of the bottles mean that they are impossible to recycle. Lucozade and Ribena are particularly bad. Will the Minister mention that too when he is having a go at the company about sugar?

[Ms Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Order. I will allow that, Ms McCarthy, but that is the only off-issue topic.

[Steve Brine]

It is on my list.

We also challenged the food and drink industry, with Public Health England’s sugar reduction programme, to reduce the amount of sugar in the foods our children eat most by 20% by 2020. Some of the biggest players in the industry, including Waitrose, Nestlé and Kellogg’s, which a number of hon. Members mentioned, have already made positive moves towards that target. Data will be available in March this year to give us a better picture of how the whole market has responded—we will be naming names—and to show whether we have met our year one target of a 5% reduction. We remain positive, but we have been clear from the beginning that if sufficient progress has not been achieved, we will consider further action. We rule nothing out.

We further built on the foundations of the childhood obesity plan in August 2017 by announcing the extension of the reformulation programme to include calories. The Government will publish more detail of the evidence for action on calorie reduction, and our ambition and timelines for that, in early 2018.

Our plan also includes school-based interventions, which a couple of hon. Members mentioned, including the expansion of healthy breakfast clubs for schools in more deprived areas, with £10 million per year of funding coming from the soft drinks industry levy. That is on top of the doubling of the school sport premium, which is flowing into schools as we speak, and represents a £320 million annual investment in the health of our children. The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) asked whether that cash will continue to flow as companies take action. I will come back to that point, but the Treasury has guaranteed a level of funding over the next three years, regardless of what comes in from the levy. If she wants me to write to her to put that in more detail, I am happy to do so—I have found the note I meant to read out, but we have covered it anyway. Such actions will ensure that we are tackling the healthiness of the food offer available to all families. The evidence shows that that is absolutely the right thing to do.

On marketing restrictions, another part of the jigsaw is how these foods are marketed, in particular to children, which is of course the central tenet of today’s debate. I thank the Centre for Social Justice and Cancer Research UK—I met both last week—and the Obesity Health Alliance for their recent reports highlighting the marketing of products high in fat, sugar and salt, or HFSS, to children. All are welcome updates that add to the debate.

This month marks 10 years since the first round of regulations to limit children’s exposure to marketing of products high in fat, salt and sugar, when we banned advertising of HFSS products in children’s television programming. We monitor that closely, including in my own home. At the weekend I tried to explain the premise of this debate to my children and, last night, when I phoned home, they told me that while watching a well-known commercial television channel they saw a slush drink mixed with sweets. Such products are being monitored closely in the Minister’s household as well as by my officials. When I get home, I will ask my children to show me that.

Recently, we welcomed the Committee of Advertising Practice strengthening the non-broadcast regulations to ban marketing of HFSS products in children’s media, including in print, cinema, online and on social media. That point was made strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) in her excellent speech.

The restrictions that the UK has in place, therefore, are among the toughest in the world, but I want to ensure that in the fast-paced world of marketing—many people spoke about how quickly that world is moving—it stays that way. We heard lots of “go further” calls, including by the hon. Member for Bristol East, and that is why we have invested £5 million to establish a policy research unit on obesity that will consider all the latest evidence on marketing and obesity, including in the advertising space. That is also why we are updating something called the nutrient profile model, which does not sound exciting but is important. It is the tool that helps advertisers determine which food and drink products are HFSS and, as a result, cannot be advertised to children. The purpose is to ensure that the model reflects the latest dietary advice. Public Health England expects to consult on that in early 2018.

[Dr Poulter]

In that context, what measures are in place or is the Minister considering putting in place regarding online advertising to children?

[Steve Brine]

I will come on to that—if I do not, I will write to my hon. Friend—so I ask him to bear with me.

My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash, who opened the debate, said that the Department should have the lead on advertising. I am not sure that my friends in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will agree, but I understand her point. I have noted that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have all been touched on in the debate. I reassure the House that tackling the challenge is a cross-Government concern. The childhood obesity plan that was published is a cross-Government plan, and all Departments have a rightful role to play, which continues to be the case as that plan is delivered.

The hon. Member for Westminster Hall, otherwise known as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), spoke well as always. I know he had to leave—he let the Chair and me know that. He spoke about food management and touched specifically on diabetes. He actually said, “If only I had known the damage being done”—I have heard that so many times. On Friday, I visited a brilliant organisation called LifeLab at Southampton General Hospital, which is partly funded by Southampton University. LifeLab empowers children through scientific inquiry to understand the impact on their bodies of their behaviour, the food that they eat and the drinks that they drink. A new spin-off called Early LifeLab goes into primary schools, while secondary schoolchildren from Southampton, across the south of England and further afield come into LifeLab to understand. So in answer to, “If only I had known,” that is what LifeLab does. I am very interested in looking at evaluations of LifeLab as it goes forward and in how that work might be built into a wider public policy roll-out.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made an excellent speech, as he always does. He rightly said that the poor are the most negatively affected, and we have touched on that point. I thank him for his Thailand, Popeye and spinach example. He also mentioned local authorities and planning. Local authorities have a range of powers to create healthier environments in their area through local plans and individual planning decisions. The national planning policy framework makes it clear that health objectives should be taken into account. The DHCLG is in the process of updating the framework to see if other aspects can be strengthened.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, and for the offer of a weekend together among the spring tulips in Amsterdam, which is very appealing on a cold January morning in Westminster. He also mentioned the Centre for Social Justice which, as I said, I met last week. I am very interested in its work. He touched on Making Every Contact Count and GPs. He is absolutely right about that and we could do much better. It is a subject that I am sure will come up over dinner later this week when I go to the annual dinner at the Royal College of General Practitioners.

My hon. Friend was intervened on by our colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), on the daily mile. At every single school that I go into, whether as a local MP or as a Minister, I ask if the daily mile is being done. That has been a brilliant import from north of the border and it is excellent. I hope that every Member who goes into a school talks about the importance of the daily mile and encourages them to do it.

Many other points were made. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire talked about colour coding and the traffic-light system. Our colour-coded, front-of-pack labelling scheme is voluntary at the moment. It covers about two thirds of the market. We will consider other available labelling options as part of our withdrawal from the European Union—he has my guarantee on that.

The hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) spoke about the imbalance of information. His point was well made, I thought, about manufacturers and industry providing more information than the NHS does in his constituency. I would say that the Government have a strong voice in this debate, and rightly so, which is why we are seeing good progress on delivery of the plan, but we are also investing in the highly successful Change4Life programme, which I am responsible for through Public Health England. It informs families about healthier eating. Can we do more? We can, without doubt, in the public health and prevention space.

The hon. Member for Bristol East mentioned the “eatwell plate” in reference to the public sector. To respond, we have in place robust standards for public sector procurement, the Government buying standards for food and catering services. DEFRA is the lead Department and comes into the story here. It continues to drive compliance across other Departments and among NHS hospitals, which are required to meet the standards through the NHS standard contract. The hon. Lady makes a good point. She also raised the issue of academies, and I understand that the Department for Education will shortly begin a campaign to get them all signed up. I thank her for making that point.

In conclusion, from day one we have been consistently clear that the childhood obesity plan marked the start of the conversation—it has never been the final word. We continue to learn from the latest evidence. We are confident that the measures we are taking will lead to a reduction in childhood obesity over 10 years, but we take nothing for granted and will keep everything under review. I thank all Members for their contributions and look forward to further ones.