Health and Care Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-04
Topic: Agriculture
Daniel Moylan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Vaizey of Didcot. Might I say, before I get into my stride, that certain noble Lords may have received an email that emanated a week or so ago from what I call the "cold dip" wing of the Conservative Party. Essentially, the message was, "Those rotters Vaizey and Moylan are out to spoil our whizzo scheme". This is not true, in my case. Unlike other speakers, I declare that I have no interests to declare. I am not aligned with the food industry, the advertising industry, the broadcasting industry or any of the charities that wish to restrict, ban or control various foods and drinks. That seemed to cause a little upset to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, who seemed to think that because I could speak in a disinterested fashion I was somehow precluded from taking part in the debate, but I hope noble Lords will not agree that is the case I have put my name to a number of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. The ones I have signed up to are essentially to do with giving enough time to implement the ban, if it is brought into effect, and I hope that they are accepted. I note that the Government have brought forward amendments of a similar character; they improve the Bill, but they do not go as far as they should. But it is a good sign, and it shows that what we are engaged in here is improving the Bill, not trying to destroy it I will add a particular word in support of my noble friend’s Amendment 247A, which seeks to make the identification of HFSS food a matter that would be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. In effect, what the Government are seeking through this schedule is a power to make binding law—with all the apparatus of fines and other enforcement—by way of mandatory guidance that will not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Instead, business planning and investment will always be at the whim of civil servants with no recourse to Parliament. That is not a situation that, in other circumstances, your Lordships’ House would feel comfortable with. We should apply the same standards here and insist that, with Amendment 247A, parliamentary approval is required before these punitive measures can be amended The other amendments in this group in my name cover a wide range of issues, but all of them are aimed at helping business plan for and implement the bans that the Government contemplate. That said, I noted last Friday that "Red Box" in the Times was reporting a change of heart by the Prime Minister on the whole policy of introducing the advertising and promotions ban. If this is true, we can happily move on and ignore Schedule 17, since all the evidence—including the Government’s own impact assessment—shows that the policy will, as my noble friend said, have a minuscule effect. The Government’s own assessment suggests that there will be a reduction of fewer than three calories a day. I ask my noble friend the Minister to confirm, when he wraps up, whether or not this planned change of policy is in hand Amendments 247, 250A and 253A in my name deal with the question of whether the ban applies to brand advertising and sponsorship—already mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Vaizey. This concerns advertising when no product of an unhealthy character is included in the advertisement or sponsorship statement. Putting the brand advertising exemption into the Bill is important for business—businesses which are looking for certainty as they are already planning advertising campaigns which will run after 2023 The exemption for brand advertising was confirmed in Committee in the other place when the Minister there said: "Products are deemed identifiable if a person could reasonably be expected to identify the advertisements as being for that product. This means that brand advertising is not in scope of the restrictions, as the purpose of the restrictions is to prohibit identifiable products."—[Official Report, Commons, Health and Care Bill Committee, 26/10/21; col. 676.] He made similar remarks on Report. This is helpful but putting the exemption into the Bill—alongside the other exemptions—would mean, should the Government wish to revisit this exemption in the future, that they would be obliged to return to Parliament to set out their reasons for doing so and seek the consent of both Houses. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, commenting on this, seemed to say "Why do we need all this paraphernalia? Let’s just trust the Government and go with what they say". I almost fell off my Bench when I heard her say that. So often in this House we are saying quite the reverse; we are saying let us not trust the Government and insist that, if we want something to happen, it should be on the face of the Bill. That is all I am saying. I believe the Government of course, and in my own small way I trust the Government—but Governments change. If we believe in this, let us see the Government put it on the face of the Bill. This has been called for by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee, which have signalled their dissatisfaction with this way of proceeding I turn to Amendments 249A, 252A and 257A in my name, which concern how the Government will assess the effectiveness of the ban. I am assuming, perhaps optimistically, that all noble Lords will agree that the restriction on freedom of expression involved in the Government’s policy should be continued only if it is seen to be effective in its purpose of reducing calorific intake. Indeed, that is the Government’s view, because the Bill contains a five-year review of the effectiveness of the restrictions, in line with better regulation principles, but it is not clear how "effectiveness" will be judged The purpose of my amendments is to seek some clarity on the issue now, as we adopt the new rules, so that the effectiveness criteria are not shaped retrospectively in five years’ time. This needs to be done now, in the interests of transparency and to enable the collection of data. It also needs to be done if the industry is to respond by changing its product mix—something which the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, said she hoped for and looked forward to, and said there was evidence of its having done so in the past. But unless it understands in advance the criteria by which the ban will be judged effective, how can it possibly begin the process of changing the product mix to meet those criteria? The lack of impact of the ban is clear, but the criteria judging how it will be assessed effectively need to be addressed right at the outset There is also the question of what the Government will take into account in assessing those criteria. Their impact assessment envisages that the policy will likely reduce calorie consumption by around three calories a day, which is roughly equivalent to half a gram of butter, or one-five-hundredth of a standard pack of butter. This is so small as to be insignificant in terms of health benefits, yet the policy will undoubtedly have wider economic costs, including on competition, innovation, prices, media revenues, advertising and the wider creative industries. Are the Government going to assess this wider picture?