Health and Care Bill — House of Commons, 2021-11-22
Topic: Agriculture
Andrew John Stevenson (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to support the amendments in my name: 110, 111, 112 and 113. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that I have a significant number of food and drink manufacturers in my constituency, and that I chair the all-party parliamentary group for food and drink manufacturing. I also support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) and for Buckingham (Greg Smith), and fully support and endorse their comments In reality, I and many others would have preferred clause 125 and the whole of schedule 16 to have been removed from the Bill. I and I think many others are not convinced that that is really the way forward or that it will achieve very much. That view is shared by many of my colleagues, but also by many in the advertising industry and the food and drink sector. That is not because they are against the Government’s attempts to respond to the challenge of obesity, which is and should be a concern for all of us, but because their impact is likely to be so insignificant that it is disproportionate to what is proposed. We should also remember that the industry has already done a huge amount. It is incredibly innovative—reformulation, reductions in salt and sugar—and the reductions we have already seen are very significant. The industry continues to make changes and I believe it will continue to do so in the future. We should also remember that there is something called personal responsibility There is an opportunity, however, for compromise and improvements to schedule 16—hence the various amendments that have been tabled. I very much hope that the Government will be willing to compromise in their approach and see the benefits of the amendments that stand in my hon. Friends’ names and mine. I do not intend to detain the House for long, because my amendments are primarily technical rather than anything greater I tabled amendments 111, 112 and 113 because I believe that we want a food and drink manufacturing sector that is competitive and is based in the UK as much as possible. As presently drafted, the Bill exempts certain businesses, but the criteria are based on UK employee numbers. Large multinational companies could therefore be exempt if the UK element of their business has under 250 employees; conversely, a UK business with 250-plus employees would not be exempt. That has the potential to be unfair in many respects to UK businesses from a competition perspective, and could lead them to divert manufacturing abroad. A simple solution would be to take account of turnover as well as staff numbers. I have suggested using the definition in section 465 of the Companies Act 2006, which I believe would deal with the situation Under the Bill, paid-for branded adverts for products that are high in fat, salt or sugar would be prevented on retailer-owned spaces, but retailers would still be able to advertise equivalent HFSS own-brand products. That could distort competition directly between retailers’ and manufacturers’ products. Amendment 110 would ensure a level playing field, which in my view would be much fairer I hope that the Government will be receptive to my amendments—if not now, via changes introduced in the other place. In anticipation of such a compromise, I do not intend to put them to the vote.