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Food Products (Marketing to Children) Bill

No, not just yet. I have a point to make. I will not be distracted by debate on the Olympics. My third qualification is that I am secretary of the all-party group on corporate responsibility. There is a very good example of good corporate responsibility in my constituency, in the national headquarters of Kraft Foods. It has run a responsible promotion aimed at children, called Health 4 Schools. It is about promoting healthy cooking and eating in schools. It has resisted making any association with the many confectionery products produced by Kraft. If I have one concern about the Bill, it is with clause 2, which refers to associations. I would regret it very much if Kraft's obvious association with confectionary brands meant that it was not able to run a responsible promotion. Subsection (2)(b) offers a mechanism through which that might be addressed; that issue could perhaps be considered in Committee, but it is important that it be addressed. Finally, I speak as the husband of a public health doctor, and therefore as someone who is well aware, if somewhat vicariously, of the seriousness of the rising tide of ill health, a lot of it associated with poor diet and nutrition, that is affecting our whole country and that starts in childhood. We are talking about a serious, deadly threat to our nation's health and, through the NHS, to our nation's finances in the longer term. Those are not issues to be dismissed lightly in defence of Ronald McDonald or the advertising industry's short-term benefit.