CONTROL OF ADVERTISEMENTS (Hansard, 19 February 1965)

§ Mr. Francis Noel-Baker (Swindon)

Advertising is such a wide subject, which arouses such very great interest and in many quarters such great concern, and which has such a variety of aspects, ranging from amenity to pornography and from the freedom of the Press to consumer protection, that obviously one can deal with it only in a superficial manner in the few minutes which I have to share with my hon. Friend. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will therefore forgive me if I speak rapidly and if I do not cover all the points in the document which I and my colleagues recently discussed with my hon. Friend and his Ministerial colleagues in a deputation to the Board of Trade on Tuesday.

I start by mentioning the word "control" which is used in the title of this debate. Of course, like every other Member on this side of the House I hate controls. I want to see as little control, as little censorship, as little interference, as little intrusion in people's lives as is compatible with other people's dignity and freedom. I am against control, censorship and interference, whether by public authority or private vested interest, except where control is absolutely necessary to protect the freedom, dignity and privacy of the individual citizen.

I hope that my hon. Friend will reject the impertinent rubbish put out by some advertising interests which suggests that any public-spirited person or group which wants to defend itself or its fellows against the exploitation, waste, bullying, lying and instrusions of some current advertising techniques is a puritanical maiden aunt. On the contrary, it is they and not us, the advertising interests, who use these techniques, which are the enemies of freedom and of freedom of choice about which they boast so much.

I would remind my hon. Friend of a resolution which was passed unanimously at the last Labour Party conference before the General Election, after a rousing platform speech from the representative of the National Executive of the party, pledging action as soon as the 1602 Labour Party took power. The Motion reads: This Conference, noting the increasing power of the advertising industry, its influence upon our national life, the growing impact of advertising on the individual and the lack of any effective control over it, calls upon the National Executive Committee to prepare policies for the next Labour Government to ensure that effective steps are taken to stop waste, exploitation of the consumer, and other abuses by commercial advertising in the press, on the television, on posters and in other media. My hon. Friend will remember that debate. He took part in it.

My main purpose in raising the subject today is to ask my hon. Friend if he can now spell out the way in which the Government propose to implement that clear and categorical undertaking by the party. The second purpose of the debate is to ask him to look again at the recent performance of the advertising business and to agree with the unanimous opinion of consumer and professional bodies, only excluding the advertising agents themselves, that the present arrangements for policing advertising and, in particular, the fraudulently entitled Advertising Standards so-called "Authority" have been and are bound to be a complete and utter wash-out.

My hon. Friend already knows the views of the Consumer Council and the Advertising Inquiry Council, presided over by Lord Fisher, the Retail Trading Standards Association and the rest about this inadequate, ineffective, dilatory and secretive facade which has had almost no impact on advertising standards and none at all on the general public. I hope that he will look carefully at what the body has done and not done and then accept the advice of the many public organisations, notably the Consumer Council and the Advertising Inquiry Council—of which, as he knows, I am chairman—which are pressing for the setting up of an effective public independent referee with real powers to watch and police advertising, to enforce advertising standards and to deal with false and misleading claims.

At the same time I urge my hon. Friend to give more teeth to the Consumer Council, to encourage it to scrutinise advertising as one of its important permanent regular functions, to issue periodical reports about advertising and 1603 to take up complaints from consumers and the public. I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to pay tribute to the work done so far by the Consumer Council and to encourage it to do still more and better from now on.

If my hon. Friend wants recent evidence of the ineffectiveness of the advertising industry's own policing methods he has only to throw his mind back to the Questions, out of which this Adjournment debate arose, about the scandalous advertising for the universal health clubs, which was first raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds), whom I am glad to see in his place this afternoon. My hon. Friend will have to admit that if it had not been for the tremendous pressure started by my hon. Friend and supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House, no action would have been taken, and that even after assurances had been given by the advertising industry itself these advertisements went on appearing.

There is one of them, exactly like that about which my hon. Friend complained a month ago, which is in the well-known magazine, Vogue, of February, this current month, without any action having been taken. Advertisers often ask their critics to be specific about advertisements to which they object because they are misleading or dishonest or because they think that they are bad for other reasons.

My hon. Friend, apart from the examples that I shall give him, has had a mass of evidence submitted to him by the Consumer Council, the Advertising Inquiry Council, the Retail Trading Standards Association, the Consumers' Association, and so on. I will not take up the time of the House by giving a lot of examples now. I invite my hon. Friend to do what I did this morning and to have a look at the national papers of today. In them he will find some absolutely shocking examples of misleading and, sometimes, of pernicious advertising which show quite clearly that the proprietors and their watchdogs and their associations are not doing their job of maintaining advertising standards in the Press.

This does not only apply to the weaker brethren but to some of the most successful newspapers with the larger circulations. Much of this appallingly bad 1604 advertising is medical, and my hon. Friend will know of the very strong views which the medical profession holds about drug advertising to the general public, the way it is deliberately encouraging self-medication, and the other misleading claims much of it makes. In fact, he knows that many doctors would like to see the advertising of patent medicines banned altogether not only on commercial television but in all other media. This is a subject of which tile Advertising Inquiry Council hopes shortly to make a detailed study of the kind it made of cigarette advertising which was one of the factors which led to the recent ban of such advertising on commercial television.

I will quote one or two examples from today's newspapers to give an idea of what I have in mind. In the Daily Express we have the advertisement stating: New way to shrink haemorrhoids without Surgery". It then goes on to say: All this without narcotics, anaesthetics or astringents. The names given, "Bio-Dyne" and "Preparation H", are trade marks.

Another advertisement is in the Sun, which is remarkable for its lack of advertising, and I suppose this means that we are not very far from the time when the Sun will finally collapse despite all Mr. King's pledges about retaining the Daily Herald for seven years, and so on. It is a very bad example. It is an advertisement about haermorrhoids and constipation, the sort of advertisement concerning which the medical profession objects very strongly.

In the Sketch there is an obviously fraudulent advertisement about a preparation which is supposed to give scientific facial rejuvenation treatment that has restored to thousands the smooth skin texture of radiant youth. My hon. Friend will remember the recent exposures in Which when dealing with preparations of that kind.

In the Daily Mail there is an advertisement about bronchitis. It advertises tablets and says of them: These tablets contain an ingredient which actually brings about the enlargement of the bronchial tubes and so relieves the congestion.… 1605 There is a similar advertisement in the Daily Mirror. It says: Anestan tablets have helped thousands of bronchial sufferers. Another advertisement in the Daily Express is for a free supply of DO-DO tablets. It says: Once convinced that DO-DO tablets do relieve your 'chestiness' and, in fact help you to breathe freely, you can get regular supplies from any chemist.… Of course, this kind of preparation should never be used except on the advice of a doctor. The advertisement appears to be promoting a habit of a very undesirable kind.

In the Daily Express this morning is a cigarette advertisement which, without actually saying so, tries to indicate that filter tips are safer medically than other cigarettes. As my hon. Friend knows, there is no evidence whatever that a cigarette with a filter tip is any less dangerous than any other kind. I wish at this point to say a word about cigarette advertising and to congratulate the Government on making a start by banning it on commercial television. I agree with the critics of the Minister of Health, many of whom are on the other side of the House, who say that it is quite illogical to apply this ban only to television. It should, of course, be extended to the Press and other media. I very much hope that steps are being taken, as was indicated by the Minister, to bring that about, if possible by persuasion, if not by compulsion. I know that a number of leading newspaper proprietors feel very anxious about taking cigarette advertising, although it means a lot of money to them. Some would find their consciences relieved if they and their competitors did not take it at all.

I wish to say a word to the cigarette manufacturers and their advertising agents. Instead of flying in the face of medical evidence and complaining about the ban on cigarette advertising, what they should be doing, and so, incidentally, should the tobacco workers' unions, is switching from cigarettes, against which there is the strongest medical evidence, to products like cigars and pipe tobacco, against which there is at present no medical evidence at all.

I wish to refer to bait advertising which may be found in the columns of the local as well as the national Press and to ask 1606 what action can be taken about this. I suggest that my hon. Friend's Department should secure the shorthand notes of the evidence of a witness representing the Newspaper Society during an action in which the Retail Trading Standards Association was involved, a recent libel action. If he looks at this carefully, my hon. Friend will see that the most astonishing statements were made by a representative of one of the bodies which is supposed to be policing bait advertising. Perhaps I may remind my hon. Friend that not long before it crashed, the Bloom "empire" was conducting a tremendous campaign of switch-sale advertising in some of the highest quality and highest circulation newspapers.

I should like to say a word about direct mail advertising, partly because when campaigns are taken away from one medium—and an example is cigarette advertising being removed from commercial television—if it comes out of the Press, the advertising of this product, like others, may move to direct mail advertising. My hon. Friend will be interested in an article on the economics of this method of selling in today's Guardian. There it states: Among the quiverful of communications media that an advertiser can pick from in attacking his potential customers, direct mail occupies an extreme position as at once the most selective and the most costly per message dispatched. What is the legal position regarding direct mail advertising? What control over it is there? I refer to this matter partly because a number of constituents and other people have sent me advertisements which they consider to be obscene from a publication about which a good deal has been said in this House and which contain pictures of naked women. I do not myself take any very violent view about these pictures, but to some people they are highly undesirable. The fact that they may be made available through the post to young people and others makes it obvious that the advertisements are being sent out in a quite unselective manner. I wish to ask what is the legal position and what powers are possessed by the Post Office, or some other body, to deal with advertising of this kind when it can be shown that it is either obscene or undesirable in some other way. My hon. Friend may have seen a report a few days ago of a case, Reg. v. Straker, where 1607 reference was made to the inadequacy of the provisions in the Post Office Act, 1953.

I move quickly now to a very big subject which I will deal with briefly, because of the shortage of time. It is the indirect effect of advertising on the editorial content of the Press. This is a grave issue, disturbing many people, including the National Union of Journalists, of which my hon. Friend and I are both members. If he wants evidence of the effect of the pressure of advertising on the British Press, he can see it in a simple manner by looking at the editorial comment tomorrow and on Sunday on this debate. He will find that it is remarkable for its absence. Indeed, I was told only the other day by a representative of one of the serious, quality newspapers that although this was a subject which they would like to discuss—I am not referring to my speech but to the subject—it is dynamite so far as their advertisers are concerned and that I must never expect any editorial comment whatever on the subject of advertising in their columns.

I should like my hon. Friend to say what the Government have in mind not only about maintaining standards of advertising, but about the indirect pressures on the Press, partly because of the disparity between the income received from advertisements and the income received from circulation—which is greatly in excess in this country of what it is in many other parts of the world—and whether the Government intend to discuss the subject with the Press Council.

There are many other aspects with which I should like to have dealt, but I have not the time—the effect on the monopolisation of business and industry in this country of advertising, the amount of expenditure, and the possible tax on advertising. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who wound up the previous debate, might well have mentioned advertising expenditure, running at well over £1 million a day, when he was talking about the inadequacy of the funds for the social services. Advertising on commercial television and the way in which the advertisements can gradually be isolated from the programmes is another big subject and there are many people—ramblers 1608 and country lovers—who are very much concerned about the control of outdoor advertising. I do not want my hon. Friend to think that these are not important topics, just because we have not the time to mention them here. There are large numbers of people in the country and there are also many of our hon. Friends on this side of the House who feel very strongly on this subject and who want to see the resolution of the Labour Party conference of the year before last implemented without delay.

§ The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling)

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Francis Noel-Baker) that this is an extremely wide subject. I too, for quite obvious reasons, have to be very brief and somewhat superficial in the short time which I have left to reply. It is always a good thing, I think, to give the subject of advertising a good airing. It keeps the advertising business up to scratch, if nothing else, and it also gives us the opportunity to point out that the impact of advertising is effective on living standards. Of course, its influence can be potentially good or potentially harmful.

We always have to bear in mind that an industrial and trading economy such as ours can only thrive if it can sell its products. We have to make sure that we do nothing in this field which will hamper the advertising or sales techniques which are in the interests of the consumers and which are beneficial to our trading system. At the same time, we do not want any dishonest advertising, but we want to see that all our people enjoy the products of modern industry, and I suppose that it is no bad thing if they can be told only about competing products so that they can make the sensible choice of the things which they want to buy, provided, of course, that everybody tells the truth.

I suppose that it can be argued that some of our modern advertising techniques are wasteful of resources, but this is a problem which ought to be more fully investigated to find out the economics of advertising. I think that it is a fruitful field of research for some organisation which is suitably equipped to carry it out. We are concerned here with the Government's place in this business of advertising. I suppose that the prime function of the Government is to guard 1609 the interests of the community as a whole against the dangers of exploitation or deception on moral or health grounds, or whatever the criticism may be.

We think that we have to proceed by establishing laws to protect the ordinary citizen against objectionable practices, which have got to be, and can be, clearly defined. We shall, of course, be introducing as soon as practicable legislation to extend the scope of the existing protective legislation, which admittedly is now out of date and quite inadequate, and the Advertising Inquiry Council, which has a very able advocate in my hon. Friend, has seen a copy of our preliminary proposals for the application of this legislation to advertising. We shall be very happy indeed to examine any comments which that Council may like to make on these proposals. But it is our belief that the greatly strengthened merchandise marks legislation, which will have to have a different name by the time we have finished with it, through its specific application to advertising, including the advertising of services, and the duty of enforcement which is to be laid on local authorities, will be an effective weapon to counter those forms of advertising which are positively and clearly false or misleading.

This will still leave a field of possibly misleading advertising where subjective opinion as to what is or is not misleading may differ widely, and which it would be extremely difficult to attempt to control by legislation. The right course here, in the Government's view, as the Malony Committee recommended, is to give the industry a fair chance to discipline itself. We do not think that the voluntary system up to now has proved itself. It probably has not worked as effectively as one might have wished. I understand that hon. Members have recently received a copy of a memorandum setting out the industry's proposals for the future, and the real test of the effectiveness of the system of voluntary control will come when the new legislation is in operation and when the two systems are working side by side.

But we must insist that the voluntary system works effectively in its own field and is clearly seen to be working effectively to check abuses. I agree with my hon. Friend that the Consumer Council at present and during the period before 1610 the legislation comes into effect, and afterwards, should be encouraged to do more to expose misleading advertising.

My hon. Friend asked me about the legal position in relation to direct mail advertising. There is no specific control over this. He probably knows that obscene publications are prohibited by the Obscene Publications Act which is policed by local authorities. I think that we should also look here at the United States law, where misleading advertising sent through the post is, I understand, a legal offence and is prosecuted by the postal authorities. Bait advertising will be dealt with by our legislation. I think that in the meantime we ought to propose through the Consumer Council to make sure that the advertising authorities themselves—the advertising agencies, newspapers and so on—do what they can within their own control to stop this sort of thing.

My hon. Friend raised the question of special products. I use the word "special" in the way in which it was used in the memorandum which was sent to me—cigarettes, drugs and so on. I will certainly bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health the points which have been made by him about the desirability of controlling the advertising of drugs or of other specified commodities. As my hon. Friend probably knows, the Food and Drugs Act gives authority to the Ministry of Health to deal with misleading advertising and misleading labelling of drugs in this field, and of course if harmful drugs are getting on the market, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health has power to deal with that situation.

As to the effect of advertising on editorial policy, as my hon. Friend knows the Press Council is an entirely voluntary body with wide terms of reference, terms broadly in accordance with those which were recommended by the Royal Commission. It has an extremely distinguished independent Chairman in Lord Devlin and I am sure that the Press Council would be prepared to consider any suggestions which my hon. Friend or anyone else might care to make about the desirability of guarding against undue influence being brought to bear on editors by newspaper advertising.

My hon. Friend also raised the question of the Universal Health Studios. I regret that I have not had a chance as yet to 1611 explain in detail the views we have about this body. In fact, when Questions were asked in the House about it before Christmas I almost rose to my feet to give notice that I would raise the matter on the Adjournment, because it was impossible to deal with the subject by means of Question and Answer. I will not now anticipate the Adjournment debate which my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) has on this subject and which, I gather, will take place on Tuesday.

I have gone quickly over the points my hon. Friend raised. We must approach this problem, as I said at the outset, realising that we live in a trading community in which advertising clearly has a place. We must see that advertising is honest and straightforward and although my hon. Friend is able to bring cases—perhaps many cases, as did the Consumer Council—about misleading advertising, I feel sure that he and other hon. Members agree that, generally speaking, the traders, manufacturers and advertisers in this country are honest in the presentation of the goods they sell.

This must be so because there is a tremendous amount of good will involved in prosperous and flourishing trading 1612 activities. To lose that good will does a great deal of harm to the enterprises concerned. My hon. Friend mentioned Bloom's washing machines. I do not need to take that matter any further. If an organisation is using advertising to mislead customers it does not last very long. At the same time, we do not want to see any customers, shoppers or consumers misled or deceived by any kind of advertising or publicity, and I repeat that there are two ways in which this can be tackled.

We can do it, first, by legislation where one can legally define misleading advertising. With the proper enforcement procedure, which we will provide in the new Bill—and I hope that we can get it within the legislative programme before long—I am sure that we can cut out the deceptive and misleading advertising and labelling of goods that now goes on. Secondly, where one cannot—