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Television Advertising (Food) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, on instituting such an important debate through her introduction of the Bill. I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, on his contribution and welcome him to the House. I admire the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton; her understanding of retail, consumer and children’s issues is undoubted. We on these Benches share her concerns, and have done for considerable time, about the rise of obesity among children and—even more worrying—conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease that follow as a consequence. We also have considerable sympathy with the policy objectives and spirit of the Bill. We do not want advertisingfor food and drink high in fat, sugar and salt that causes obesity in children to be targeted at them, and we want the exposure of children under 16 to it to be reduced. What is the appropriate way of doingthat, and how far should we go? On current evidence and in current circumstances, that is where we part company with the noble Baroness. As the sponsor of the tobacco advertising and sponsorship Bill, I do not see the situation as analogous to that for that Bill. The sequence of events leading to the Ofcom proposals of November 2006 and to the Bill is clear. The original Ofcom consultation paper of March 2006 argued for three options. In the end Ofcom, in response to concerns raised, went further and essentially adopted a fourth option—to introduce a total ban on HFSS food and drink advertisements in and around programmes of particular appeal to children under 16. At the same time, Ofcom proposed a ban on the use of celebrities and licensed characters in advertisements in children’s programming, and it promised to review the impact of those restrictions a year after implementation, in autumn 2008. Ofcom calculates that its proposals will halve the HFSS food and drink advertising seen by primary school children by 50 per cent and reduce that seen by under-16s by 41 per cent. On these Benches in both Houses, we welcomed those proposals as a step in the right direction. We have some reservations, which I shall come to shortly. Our reasons for doing so were and are that Ofcom’s judgment about what is proportionate in the context of current research about the impact of advertising, and in the context of the impact of regulation on the television industry, is correct. In the same way that Ofcom has, we need to balance the impact of regulation against the risks that we are trying to guard against. It is estimated that the Ofcom proposals will cost the television industry £39 million. Ofcom, which is the best judge, estimates that the proposals in the Bill would cost some £250 million in lost advertising revenue. As many noble Lords have pointed out, the potential damage to the independent television sector is enormous, and this must be weighed in the balance. I must say that I am not nearly as sanguine on the outcome as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, or the noble Baronesses, Lady Howarth and Lady Jones. The scale of the change required is enormous. Advertising revenue is falling—just look at ITV’s recent results—and there will be a knock-on effect. Investment in children’s television has fallen by 30 per cent since 1998. ITV has stopped making children’s programmes altogether. Noble Lords may have noticed that Philip Pullman criticised much of the non-UK-originated television programming for children. He is absolutely right, but things cannot improve without the necessary revenue. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, criticised the Ofcom restrictions and wishes to go further, but our knowledge of the impact of advertising on children’s dietary preferences is incomplete. As several noble Lords have said, including the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the FSA assessed that the direct impact was ““modest””, at 2 per cent. Other research cited in correspondence that I have seen, such as that from Liverpool University, is absolutely not authoritative. Indeed, that research applied to only 59 children. Obesity levels continue to rise, particularly among the age group of two to 10 year-olds, yet TV food advertising has fallen by 21 per cent since 2003. Children are watching less television because of other competing media, such as computer games. Therefore, even if we adopted the noble Baroness’s proposals, we do not know whether they would be effective. She and other noble Lords complain that many adult television programmes are watched by children and that they will escape the Ofcom restrictions. But the converse argument is that the majority of programmes shown between 6 pm and 9 pm, for which the audience consists of one child for every 19 adults, would have a total ban on HFSS advertisements. Many programmes before the watershed are watched by only a small number of children. Channel Five says that 36 out of its 749 programmes are transmitted before the watershed and fall into the Ofcom category. Yet all those programmes would be hit by a ban. That seems disproportionate to us. Why are the proponents of the Bill so confident that a watershed solution provides the key to children’s obesity at a cost of £250 million to the television industry? There is a further reason to be wary of these proposals—the restrictions, whether imposed by Ofcom or by this Bill, are tied to the FSA nutrient profiles. Detailed debate on the Bill is for another day, but the system is flawed. As the retail and food industries have pointed out, how can cheese, olive oil, Bovril and Marmite be caught out, but oven chips, diet fizzy drinks and chicken nuggets be okay? The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, pointed out that it is a matter judgment on the science, but many people believe that those judgments are incorrect. The impact of the FSA’s nutrient profiles on the type of advertising that could be carried out under the Ofcom proposals would be considerable. If the Bill were to be passed, that flawed system of nutrient profiles would lead to even more perverse conclusions. All that said, we on these Benches do not believe that the Ofcom proposals are perfect. In our view, they do not adequately tackle the issue of brand advertising. As the father of a nine year-old, I see that generic brand advertising, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, described it, can have a powerful impact. Thus, not every door is bolted in the Ofcom proposals, but I believe that, given the current state of our knowledge, they are proportionate. They represent a principle, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, pointed out in her excellent speech, that Ofcom and other UK retailers must adhere to. In future, we must ensure that these restrictions are properly monitored, enforced and, if necessary, changed. A number of reviews will take place that will give us the opportunity to reappraise the situation. We have the Ofcom review in the autumn of 2008, as has already been mentioned; there is the continuing debate in the European Parliament and the Commission about the European television without frontiers directive, which will make recommendations in advertising; the Government will conduct an interim review this autumn on changes to the balance and nature of food advertising and a full review next year; and the Department of Health has commissioned an analysis of advertising and promotional activity, which will help in those two reviews. It seems to me that there are quite enough reviews to give us the opportunity to appraise whether this new Ofcom system is working. Of course all of us in this House recognise that there is no quick fix to a major problem such as obesity; many measures need to be taken. As noble Lords have pointed out, many measures were set out three years ago in the White Paper Choosing Health. It is notable that we have not made enough progress in putting those recommendations into effect. It is not only with advertising that action needs to be taken; parents, as many noble Lords have pointed out, need to take responsibility for guiding their children towards a healthier and more active lifestyle. I hope, however, that this debate and the Bill’s progress will act as a spur, to repeat the expression that several noble Lords have used, to the food industry, the advertising industry, government departments—including the Department of Health and DCMS—and the regulators, to ensure that those restrictions that are currently in place will be effective. We need to be continually vigilant but not just about advertising; we need, as noble Lords have said, to get the substance of our food right and ensure that we do so not just with the way in which we market and sell it but with the products that are out there in the market.