Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1420-1439)
29 MARCH 2004
RT HON
MARGARET HODGE
MBE, MP, MS MELA
WATTS, RT
HON TESSA
JOWELL, MP AND
MR PAUL
HERON
Q1420 Mr Amess: I have to say I am surprised
and disappointed because fast food advertising right now is having
a huge impact on our children's lives, I have no doubt at all
about it.
Tessa Jowell: What is your evidence?
Q1421 Mr Amess: I would like to develop
the point a bit. Pay 30p, get a bigger size: many of us with children
can see the impact and it is not so easy to keep saying no to
children with the huge influence of their friends. This is happening
right now and you are talking about waiting until the summer and
this is not for another three or four months. What I am surprised
about is in the interview you agreed about the damage but why
can there not be an interim moratorium about it because it is
real, it is happening now? In America, and I am sorry to keep
on about it but whatever happens in America seems to find its
way over here, we just could not believe the state of children
and young people and fast food in particular was very, very damaging.
Secretary of State, I applaud all of your intentions but it is
just that it is happening now. I cannot really see the reluctance
unless there is some reason, that we are upsetting people, as
to why we cannot take action now.
Tessa Jowell: I do not think any
of this is motivated by upsetting, placating, reassuring or making
anybody particularly happy. The Government's consideration in
relation to this, and my consideration in relation to this, is
motivated by one thing and that is getting the right policy that
will have an effect and that will put us at the forefront of countries
that are tackling what is very much a western disease. That is
the first point. The second is that were I to come to you and
say, "I have just read another thing in the paper about the
effect of advertising and so forth, so forget the fact that I
have asked the regulator to report and review the evidence, forget
the fact that we have our principal body that advises on food
undertaking one of the most rigorous analyses of the impact of
promotion ever, I know better than any conclusions they will draw,
I have decided that we will ban it", you would say that is
irresponsible and damaging, and you would be right. That is why
I think it is important to wait until the summer and then reach
conclusions on the basis of evidence. This is an area, like many,
many areas in this broad public health field, where it is very
easy to react on the basis of emotion and instinct, but what we
have got to do is to root these policies in evidence and we have
to be clearer than we are now about the respective balance in
putting together our strategy, to pick up Dr Taylor's point, between
the promotion of exercise, the promotion of a healthy diet and
the impact of advertising. Also we have got to have a strategy
to act in relation to the glaring social class inequalities here.
Just to add to what Margaret said, that is why our school sport
partnerships are being implemented in the first instance in the
most deprived areas, to give those children who are likely to
get least exercise, least sport, the first chance.
Q1422 Mr Amess: It really is not the
case that no action is being taken because the Government is afraid
of being accused of running a nanny state, that is not an issue
at all?
Tessa Jowell: I think it is the
Opposition that most often raises that charge. No, we are not
afraid of Opposition charges or anybody else's charges about the
nanny state. We could get into that discussion about the respective
responsibility of industry, of the individual and families, and
the Government, which again tends to provide an intellectual structure
for a lot of public health policy. No, we are not doing this out
of anything other than a determination to get the policy right.
Q1423 Mr Amess: I have listened very
carefully to what you have said and we are in recess in the summer,
we will see what happens when we return in September. You did
ask me earlier for my evidence. The evidence that we saw in the
United States of America could not have been clearer. They are
practically giving the food away with no consideration for the
damage it is having on our children. It does not add up. We are
told, on the one hand, that the Government was not just prompted
to do something about obesity because of the Health Select Committee
inquiry, they have been anxious about it for two, three, four
years, but I am still just a bit puzzled now that the fact that
it is make your mind up time and something has got to happen that
we are being terribly cautious. Everyone everywhere can see the
evidence that children in particular are getting fatter. Why on
earth are we all going round with these pedometers, and I am delighted
that we are going round with them, and when it comes to the scores
some of my colleagues will ask other questions? I just do not
buy this idea of where is the evidence and we have got to wait.
For the Committee it is very, very frustrating.
Tessa Jowell: One of the things
I am sure you understand is children's lives, and particularly
their leisure time, are much more sedentary and you can see that
trend over the last ten years. Whereas ten years ago children
may have been running around the playground, now they are in front
of their Play Station. That is why such an important part of our
response to this is to re-engage children in sport and to re-engage
children in sport by having good teaching and first class facilities.
In those school sport partnerships that have been established
now for three years, the positive results are beginning to show.
Q1424 Dr Naysmith: Secretary of State,
since David has raised advertising so forcefully can I ask a very
quick question of you. It is really about your personal views.
Both here and in America we have had evidence from advertisers
and so on and they all tried to convince us that advertising is
not about expanding the market for their product, in general terms
it is about brands and promoting one brand against another. I
think that is just a load of nonsense, it is about promoting totally
whatever amount of product we are talking about, whether it is
tobacco or fast food or junk food. I just wonder what do you believe
on that when advertisers come and tell you, as they tell us, that
all they are doing is trying to get a bigger share of the market
for their brand when, in fact, what they are doing is trying to
create a bigger market?
Tessa Jowell: I suspect in practice
it is a bit of both. What they are trying to do is to get you
to buy Galaxy instead of Cadbury's milk or whatever it is, but
they are also trying to increase overall levels of consumption,
of course I understand that, but that does not detract from my
earlier point about the message that attaches to that which should
be one which is focused on healthy eating and healthy lifestyle,
how much exercise you have to take to burn this off, all that
kind of information. That is the way in which we should be directing
this.
Q1425 Dr Naysmith: There are millions,
sometimes billions, being spent on that side and on the other
side we are spending hundreds of thousands to tell them to eat
healthy. It does not compare, does it?
Tessa Jowell: That makes my point,
which is why we should tap into the millions of advertisers to
invite them to join with us in pursuit of this campaign for healthy
eating and healthier lifestyles and for the reasons that I was
trying to set out in answer to John Austin's questions, the market
pressure and consumer pressure, and I believe that the time is
right for that.
Q1426 Chairman: One issue that we are
struggling with in terms of our final report is this polarised
view of regulation on the one hand and on the other persuading
the food and drink industry to take this matter more seriously.
I was rather surprised to see a new product, the Mars Delight,
launched recently which seems to completely fly in the face of
all the current thinking about the calorie content of products.
Do you feel that is significant at all, that a particular major
player in the market, at a time when there is perhaps more debate
publicly than ever before about the calorific content and obesity
issue, chooses to market such a product at this stage? Were you
surprised? In a sense does it influence your thoughts as to which
direction we need to go on this polarised regulation or free market
sort of approach?
Tessa Jowell: I do not really
think I can comment on that. I have not seen the promotion. I
assume that these promotional campaigns have a long gestation.
This is an issue which in the minds of public interest has become
very salient in the last six to nine months, in large part because
of the work of this Committee, although it is a problem that I
was aware of as Public Health Minister four or five years ago.
I do not think I can make any comment on that.
Q1427 Chairman: It is not so much the
promotion, it is the launching of such a product. Your point,
which I accept, is that we need to get the industry to be more
responsible, and to some extent there is evidence that some parts
of the industry are being more responsible, and yet we see the
launch of this completely new product, the calorific content of
which is frankly quite frightening. It seems strange that in this
political environment when people are aware of the obesity question,
the calorific content, that a major player launches such a product
against that background.
Tessa Jowell: I am afraid I have
not tried the product so—
Chairman: It would not be helpful to
your pedometer.
Q1428 Mr Burstow: Can I ask a couple
of points. The first is just a process question. You mentioned
that you have got two pieces of evidence you want to consider
in terms of advice from the FSA and Ofcom before you come to a
view about advertising. Will the conclusion that you reach be
an input into the White Paper or will it be a separate matter
that will be reported and dealt with by yourself on a separate
basis?
Tessa Jowell: Certainly it will
be dealt with in the White Paper. We are in discussion at the
moment about precisely how we handle all of these pieces of advice.
John Reid will obviously want to take a view about the extent
to which the White Paper is an omnibus as opposed to setting an
overarching structure for public health generally. Remember, obesity
is part of the Public Health White Paper, it is not all of the
Public Health White Paper. The two studies that I have referred
to relate specifically to the concern about obesity. We are in
discussion about that. I can assure you there will be a synergy
between the Public Health White Paper and the decisions that I,
as Secretary of State, have to take.
Q1429 Mr Burstow: I will move on to the
other thing I wanted to ask you about. You were talking about
the need to try and strike a balance in terms of the power of
the industry to promote its products but at the same time harnessing
that power to promote positive healthy messages. In terms of the
work the FSA has been doing so far, in their last main board consideration,
they seemed to come down against the idea of a ban on advertising
as such but instead advanced the idea that there needed to be
some mechanism put in place to enable a balance to be struck in
advertising both of unhealthy products or products of one sort
or another, and getting across messages about health products
as well. Do you think that is something that can only be achieved
through consensus and agreement or do you see a role for regulation
if consensus and agreement cannot be arrived at in terms of striking
that balance?
Tessa Jowell: In a sense this
is a process answer to your question. If it is clear that on the
basis of the evidence the FSA submits to us that the evidence
base on which policy can be built is clear and established we
will then proceed in the way that I have outlined, pursuing policies
in relation to healthier diet and exercise. I think you always
have to be prepared to say that if a voluntary approach, if agreement
between the parties, is not going to produce results then you
move to regulation, but that does not mean that you leap to regulation
in the first instance. My sense, and I hope I am not disappointed,
is that there is a willingness among the food industry to work
with us on this. It has been brought about as a result of the
consumer pressure that I referred to earlier. We have to go with
that and we have to try to get that willingness to deliver for
us the change about which I think there is broad agreement.
Q1430 Mr Burstow: I have got two more
questions. One comes out of the things you were saying earlier
on in answer to questions from the Chairman. Do you think it is
possible and desirable for the Government in its White Paper around
the issue of obesity to be setting targets first and foremost
to stabilise the obesity situation and then, secondly, to reverse
it? If you agree that that is a reasonable proposition, what sort
of timescales do you think would be acceptable to enable at least
the stabilisation of the problem?
Tessa Jowell: I think you need
an epidemiologist to advise you on that. You need to get the policy
right and that is our job, advised and based on the evidence.
Rates of decline and so forth are things which you need public
health specialists to advise on.
Q1431 Mr Burstow: They should be helping
to frame the White Paper.
Tessa Jowell: I am sure they will
be.
Q1432 Mr Burstow: My last point is to
come back to Ofcom and their role in respect of taking some aspects
of the codes and so on that are currently being reviewed. As I
understand it, there is a proposal to franchise out advertising
regulations to the Advertising Standards Authority, which is an
organisation run by the industry. Do you share, or understand
at least, the concern that some would have about that franchising
out, seeing it very much as putting profits before the interests
of people rather than dealing with a proper regulatory framework
for the industry?
Tessa Jowell: That is an unsustainable
parody of what we are doing. What we are putting in place is exactly
the same as is currently in place for billboard advertising, newspaper
advertising, for broadcast advertising, for the televised content
of broadcast advertising. It is what we call co-regulation. In
other words, there will be a code that will be binding on the
advertisers, they will have to comply with it, and we have made
it absolutely clear that if the voluntary code fails then we will
put it on a statutory footing. The statutory position is a default
that we would go to in the case that the co-regulatory approach,
which we are applying at the moment, did not work and provide
sufficient levels of protection.
Q1433 Dr Naysmith: We are moving away
from advertising for a little bit, you will be pleased to hear,
we are going on to talk about sport for a bit. Jon Owen Jones
earlier referred to something that has come up quite a lot in
our inquiry and that is that overweight and obese children are
often excluded from sport on the grounds that they will never
make the first team. That applies at school and sometimes in community
sporting facilities as well. You mentioned in the South West there
is a programme to try and encourage more community involvement
and the involvement of people who are never going to be stars
but would enjoy sport. It is true, the South West people were
up here a couple of weeks ago and I was very impressed with what
they were doing. They are doing it together with the funding groups.
I wonder if you could expand a little bit on how you hope to roll
this out over the rest of the country and make sure that it is
a really well-grounded programme because when we are talking about
an Olympic year and that sort of thing there is going to be that
kind of focus and it could take away from it.
Tessa Jowell: Olympic Year and
the Summer of Sport which will run across the country up to the
Olympics is about engaging young people in activity, not in being
champions. You have to see this a little like a pyramid, in that
the vast majority of physical activity and sport is played by
young people who will never ever be champions and do not aspire
to be champions. People like me—I was never going to be
a champion but I loved playing sport. That is the first objective,
to get children more active at school and to get them to get the
sport habit while they are at school and to continue to be active
once they leave school. Within that, there are a series of initiatives
which are intended to enable children to be as good as they can
be, so to move from just running around the playground kicking
a ball through the School Club Links programme to joining a football
club and to move from that, if they show real aptitude, on to
a talented and gifted programme. As they move into further and
higher education and they really are outstanding at netball, football
or track athletics, being a member of the Talented Athlete Scholarship
scheme which settles a sort of dowry to meet the costs of high-performance
training: coaching, nutrition, sports psychology and travel costs.
Then we have the World Class Start Potential and Performance programmes
which are run for our really elite athletes. What we are doing
is promoting participation, rolling out what will be, in time
but not yet, a universal programme but allowing children to progress
to whatever level they are capable of achieving within that.
Q1434 Dr Naysmith: Also, it is part of
the policy of the Government that the sale of school playing fields
is being restricted and I just wonder how you think that programme
and that policy is working and also, in replying to that, how
are the funds from the New Opportunities Fund being distributed
and made use of and is it possible to recoup the fact that we
have lost a lot of school playing fields in the past?
Tessa Jowell: To take the point
on playing fields, as you rightly say, no playing field is now
sold until it has been through a process of scrutiny, in the first
instance by Sport England or the Secretary of State for Education
who will determine whether or not this is a playing field that
is of sporting importance. The latest figures, which I published
about a month ago, showed that only 8% of sales proceeded where
the playing field in question was of sporting importance. Where
the playing fields were sold—and I have to tell you that,
in many cases, the best thing that can happen for a school is
that their playing field is sold and the money is reinvested in
modern state of the art facilities—in the last year for
which I published figures, the money raised was reinvested and
produced new facilities. It produced 489 new or refurbished sports
facilities to an investment value of £268 million. That is
about 50% more than the Lottery spends on sport altogether. So
this is not a sale of playing fields programme, dereliction of
duty and all the rest of it, this is an investment in 21st century
facilities and an investment that is running at close on £300
million. When we talk about participation and how you get kids
involved and how you get them continuing to play sport, the problem
is that children today will not play on unlit, muddy pitches with
no changing facilities, no hot showers and all the rest of it,
but, if you provide modern facilities, the kids will use them.
Q1435 Dr Naysmith: That happened in my
own constituency: in Monks Park School there was a new sporting
facility which replaced the playing field and it is excellent.
How are these investment decisions taken about what happens to
the money in individual cases?
Tessa Jowell: The decisions are
taken by the schools.
Q1436 Dr Naysmith: Perhaps Margaret Hodge
would like to come in as she has been sitting there very quietly.
Margaret Hodge: They have to reinvest
the money, there is no choice, in sports facilities and any sale
of school playing fields does have to have the outright permission
of the Secretary of State for Education and can only take place
if there is a reinvestment in sports facilities. So, it cannot
go anywhere else, which is why we are getting these very good
figures that Tessa is publishing.
Q1437 Mr Burns: Ministers, I genuinely
do not want to be unhelpful but, as you have both mentioned the
New Opportunities Fund, there is something I do want to raise
with you for some clarification. As you will remember at the Labour
Party Conference in 2000, the Prime Minister said that £750
million would be used from the New Opportunities Fund over the
next three years for expenditure on sports. Could you explain
to the Committee why, in 2004, only £8.5 million of that
money has actually been spent.
Tessa Jowell: Because this was
launched as a five to six year programme.
Q1438 Mr Burns: He said that £750
million from the New Opportunities Fund will be spent in the next
three years amongst sport.
Tessa Jowell: —will be allocated
over the next three years, that is absolutely right.
Q1439 Mr Burns: Yes, but only £8.5
million has. Why? We are now in year four.
Tessa Jowell: The programme is
now ahead of schedule.
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