My Lords, the regret Motion standing in my name, and also that standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, are critical of the Government’s handling of the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2022. These regulations introduce measures designed to limit the ability of retailers to promote the purchase of products classified as high in fat, salt and sugar; the intention of the regulations was to help address the high prevalence of obesity in this country.
It is worth reflecting that on 29 September 2022, just a day before the regulations were due to come into effect, the Government of the then Prime Minister Liz Truss introduced these regulations to facilitate a delay to the “multi-buy” components of the regulations—multi-buy promotions are the “buy one, get one free” on products high in fat, salt or sugar. This was passed via a negative procedure without debate, whilst the location-based restrictions came into effect as planned on 1 October this year. That brought into play restrictions on the placement of unhealthier food products near to supermarket checkouts at aisle ends and store entrances.
The motivation, if I can put it that way, for this regret Motion is that the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee strongly criticised the Government’s handling of this issue, particularly with regard to the Government’s justification for the delay, and the lack of parliamentary scrutiny for the amendment. It is the report of the committee that has formed the basis for these regret Motions, and I certainly do agree with the observations that the committee made.
Let me summarise for the purposes of your Lordships’ House the concerns encapsulated in this regret Motion. First, the Government have not brought forward sufficient evidence to justify their decision. Their stated rationale for the delay was the “global economic situation”. I suggest to the Minister that this is a somewhat cursory comment; one sentence is not enough. It is quite unclear what the Government feel the “unprecedented global economic situation” is. Are we referring to the post-pandemic situation, the war in Ukraine, high gas prices or something else? In other words, this is hardly a full description that one might expect. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee concluded that there was insufficient
“justification for delaying the start of a measure intended, over time, to accumulate public health benefits including significant savings to the NHS.”
The Government’s decision to take this still further goes directly against their own impact assessment for these policies, which states:
“Although price promotions appear to be mechanisms to help consumers save money, data shows that they increase consumer spending by encouraging people to buy more than they intended to buy in the first place.”
The impact assessment further states that
“the monetised benefits greatly outweigh the costs on a ratio of around 14:1”.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee then outlined a number of procedural criticisms of the Government, the most significant of which include that appropriate parliamentary time was not given for scrutiny of the legislation. After all, as I have already mentioned, the statutory instrument was introduced just one day before the regulations were due to come
into effect, without the standard 21-day period normally expected to allow for scrutiny by Parliament through the negative secondary legislative procedure. Of course, the statutory instrument was also laid without a full analysis of the public consultation being published, making it impossible to assess the views of the sectors affected by this decision.
There are a few questions arising from this that I invite the Minister to address when he replies. Why were the Government not able to bring forward sufficient evidence to justify their decision? Why do their claims about the impact of this policy on the cost of living contradict their own evidence presented in the impact assessment? Could the Minister say whether the consultation responses will be published, even at this stage?
I also seek reassurance from the Minister that similar procedural issues will not arise with future legislation. I make this point in particular reference to the fact that the Government will be bringing forward secondary legislation to delay the upcoming restrictions on the advertising of products high in fat, sugar and salt on TV and online, before they are due to come into effect on 1 January. I hope that we will not see a repeat of the failure to provide the requisite amount of time to allow for parliamentary scrutiny of legislation when we come to that statutory instrument. There should not be an attempt to bypass Parliament by not giving it the opportunity to discuss and examine the regulations.
This debate would not have been needed had the Government explained everything clearly in their Explanatory Memorandum, and had they allowed Parliament the opportunity to scrutinise, as is normally required. I say to the Minister that the Explanatory Memorandum is important. It is not just about how parliamentarians understand regulations; it is also about the public, industry and third-sector stakeholders. We all look to understand regulations by these means. I hope the Minister will take that point away and emphasise to the department the importance of providing the right supporting materials for often complex—and sometimes highly challenging—government policies. With that, I beg to move.