Alcohol Marketing

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) that I object to the Bill in principle and in practice. Despite her best efforts to suggest otherwise, it is clearly an attempted extension of the nanny state, of which we have had far too much already. It is gesture politics to try to appease the health zealots in this country, most of whom cannot be appeased anyway.

I accept my hon. Friend’s point that the British Medical Association found that 96% of 13-year-olds are aware of alcohol advertising. However, I dispute the inference that that leads them to go out and drink. After all, many 13-year-olds are probably well aware of car adverts, but that does not mean that they all go out driving as a result of watching them. All the research has shown the exact opposite. When young people were asked what was most likely to influence people under the age of 18 to drink alcoholic drinks regularly, 67% said the influence of friends, 56% said the availability of drink, just 5% said TV advertising, and only 3% said sponsorship.

If we accept this policy, where will it end? All sorts of products are bad for us if taken in excess. Cream cakes are undoubtedly bad for us if we partake of them in excess, as are pizzas, chocolates and curries. Does my hon. Friend propose to come back at a future date to ban the advertising of cream cakes, pizzas and curries, or anything that happens to be bad for us? This is the start of a very slippery slope, and one that I am not prepared to go down.

The Bill would do enormous damage to sports clubs. It is estimated that alcohol companies spend between £150 million and £200 million a year sponsoring sport alone, including many amateur sports teams. Without that sponsorship it would be difficult for those clubs to continue. We have the rather ludicrous suggestion that we should for health reasons attempt to try to stop the advertising of alcohol, the only consequence of which would be to stop lots of people being able to take part in sporting activities, which is presumably something the health lobby wants to encourage. The Minister for Sport and the Olympics reiterated that point when he stated:

“I know both from my own experience of growing up playing sport in Kent and my work as a constituency MP that the sponsorship offered by alcohol companies to community sports clubs brings a considerable number of benefits, both financially and in kind. This allows sports clubs to reach out to more people or improve their offer in a way that would not otherwise be possible.”

I object to the Bill in principle, but even the people who accept it in principle must recognise that it is completely unnecessary. It is a solution looking for a problem. Alcohol already cannot be sold to anyone under the age of 18, so if my hon. Friend is concerned about young people drinking alcohol, surely the solution to the problem is to stop anyone selling it to them. That law already exists.

The UK already has a comprehensive framework of regulation that makes the Bill completely unnecessary. The Advertising Standards Authority has an established regulatory system, the Portman Group provides its own code of practice and Ofcom regulates TV programme sponsorship. The current alcohol advertising rules were tightened in October 2005, in response to the alcohol harm reduction strategy, and they were reviewed again in 2008, taking into account the latest evidence commissioned by the Department of Health, and were subject to a full public consultation in 2009. The rules already state that adverts must not target under-18s; be shown around programmes that especially appeal to under-18s; link alcohol with seduction, sex or social success; link alcohol with irresponsible, anti-social, tough or daring behaviour; show alcohol being served irresponsibly; show people drinking and behaving in an adolescent or juvenile way or reflecting the culture of people under 18-years-old; or be shown in publications aimed at under-18s or where more than 25% of the readership is under 18.

Additionally, alcohol adverts already cannot be shown around programmes popular with young people, such as “The Simpsons” and “Ugly Betty”, even if the programmes appear after 9 pm. The Portman Group also introduced a code in 1996 that regulates all drinks marketed in the UK through its code of practice on the naming, packaging and promotion of alcoholic drinks. Its code is so rigorous and highly regarded that the better regulation taskforce described it as a good example of how effective self-regulation can be, and the International Harm Reduction Association includes the code within its leading 50 global alcohol harm reduction initiatives.

Furthermore, the aim of the Bill is not evidence-based. The argument is that it will reduce drinking levels among younger people, but that has not been proven by any research evidence. If any such impact did exist, it would be outweighed by other factors, such as the family environment. In fact, a study, “The Impact of Alcohol Marketing on Youth Drinking Behaviour”, found that

“no association was found between uptake of drinking and baseline awareness of alcohol marketing or number of brands recalled at baseline…no association was found between uptake of monthly drinking at follow-up and baseline awareness of alcohol marketing”.

Professor Hastings actually completed a longitudinal study to try to measure the impact of alcohol marketing on 13-year-olds in the west of Scotland. He found no association between awareness of alcohol marketing at age 13 and either the onset of drinking or the volume of alcohol consumed two years later. Surprisingly, that part of the study received very little publicity.

The lack of evidence is also apparent if we look at international comparisons. Norway has strictly no advertising for alcoholic beverages, yet consumption has been steadily increasing. In Italy, where alcohol advertising is permitted, consumption is decreasing. France is also an interesting case, as it is the example on which my hon. Friend bases her Bill. The equivalent Loi Evin was introduced in France in 1991, but it has not had the intended consequences that she would have hoped for. Statistics from the World Health Organisation show that French alcohol consumption decreased from 18.46 litres per capita in 1981 to 14.88 litres in 1991. Since the Loi Evin was enacted, consumption has levelled off, dropping to only 13.24 litres, highlighting the fact that the legislation has had little, if any, impact.

The Bill smacks of the nanny state and would set a dangerous precedent for future legislation. It would damage an already fragile amateur sporting club base without any evidence-based proof that such a change in the law would reduce youth alcohol consumption. There are less burdensome means by which we can reduce underage drinking, such as enforcing existing laws on the sale of alcohol to under-18s and to do what the Government should be doing, which is highlighting the health implications of drinking alcohol and allowing people to make up their own minds. In a free country, that is what we should believe in. This is a further extension of the nanny state to try to appease health zealots and fanatics who will never be appeased.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Dr Sarah Wollaston, Mr Kevin Barron, Tracey Crouch, John Pugh, Stephen Gilbert, Paul Flynn, Mr David Amess, Chris Bryant, Kelvin Hopkins, Mike Wood, Anne Marie Morris and John McDonnell present the Bill.

Dr Sarah Wollaston accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 9 September, and to be printed (Bill 176).