§ Mr. Martyn Jones (Clwyd, South-West)I beg to move,
That the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula Regulations 1995 (S.1., 1995, No. 77), dated 15th January 1995, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th January, be revoked.When the new regulations that we are discussing came in, all looked well, briefly. It seemed that at last we had law controlling the advertising of infant formula milks, but it soon became clear that the law was the weakest just where it was most needed. The new regulations allow the advertising of infant formula feeds in the health service, reversing a major part of the World Health Organisation code to which the Government signed up.The new regulations allow advertising in maternity wards, clinics, doctors' surgeries and all the pre and post-natal wards, just where new mothers are most vulnerable, under the greatest pressure and in need of impartial information, advice and support, and just where the advertisers most want to get at them.
When the Government were consulting on the new regulations, they received 231 letters, 216 calling for a ban on advertising baby milk in the health service, from organisations including the British Medical Association, UNICEF, the Royal College of Midwives, the British Paediatric Association and all 48 of the relevant professional organisations. The only people supporting advertising of baby milk in the health service were the formula manufacturers themselves and—surprise, surprise—advertising agencies. To whom did the Government listen? The formula feed manufacturers.
Save the Children put the case clearly in a letter on 17 February, saying that it is
very disturbing to know that the views of all health, consumer and development bodies have been discounted and only the views of the baby food industry have been taken into account".Even the baby food manufacturers acknowledge that breast is best. Some may say that I am a living example of that, having been breast-fed. Of course, I may have been a foot shorter and not quite as intelligent had I not been breast-fed.Breast-feeding develops a better brain, providing vital materials for the links within the brain. Gastroenteritis is 10 times more likely among bottle-fed babies. Infant gastroenteritis costs the national health service £18 million a year. Breast-feeding is acknowledged to protect against respiratory infections, glue ear and diabetes.
The high sugar levels in bottle feeds are one of the major causes of tooth decay in babies, leading to 21,000 cases of dental work on infants and the massive amount of pain and suffering that that causes, yet the new law will allow bottle feeds to be described as "sucrose-free". Some research, still in its early stages, shows that breast-feeding also protects the mother from breast and ovarian cancer.
Humans as a species have been around for at least 4 million years. It stands to reason that the milk produced by our species for our species is best developed for our needs and we should do everything to promote breast-feeding.
Only last week I spoke to representatives of the industry, who told me that advertising is all about promoting one brand over another, gaining market share 1619 and giving information to mothers. However, advertising is first and foremost about selling a product and often companies will sell their product using emotive and pressurising messages. One would have to be naive to believe that baby milk advertising is about giving impartial information to mothers.
We are not anti-choice on the issue; mothers have a right to choose whether to breast-feed. Some mothers are unable to breast-feed for a whole range of reasons and they need to be told which is the best infant formula for their babies by impartial professionals providing correct information, but giving advertisers the run of the health service is not the way to do it.
I am certain that we shall hear from the Government that mothers are grown-up adults who can make up their own minds on whether to believe the advertiser. I am even more certain that it has been a long time since any Conservative Members were in a maternity ward—[Interruption.] Of course, I am sure that that does not apply to the Minister, who looks far too young to be a mother.
I have here a so-called information booklet produced by the infant formula industry. It is supposed to be about breast-feeding. There are two huge centrefolds of babies, one with the caption:
I hope they give me Cow and Gate".That is in the middle of a document about breast-feeding.Another caption is even more disgraceful. It states:
Did you know it makes a baby's brain grow?",referring not to breast milk, but to Cow and Gate. Bearing in mind the latest information on early links within the human brain developed by breast-feeding, that must be an exaggeration, to say the least.All the images and words send out the message: breast is best, but bottle is just as good, which is simply not true. It is what the Government believe is the best way to give new mothers information about baby nutrition.
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster)Is not the hon. Gentleman slightly startled that there is currently one female on the Opposition Benches and four females on the Government Benches?
§ Mr. JonesI am not in the least bit startled; it gives me something nice to look at—but I suppose that that is a sexist remark.
All the 48 professional bodies involved in the debate believe that advertising of breast milk substitutes should be banned. Mothers have a right to impartial information, which is currently being denied to them. United Kingdom baby food manufacturers admit to spending at least £4 million to £5 million on straight brand advertising. They also imply that they spend money on sponsorship, which we suspect totals at least £8 million. The Government cannot hope to match that figure, and they spend about £130,000 in supporting breast-feeding.
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanReally?
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanThe hon. Gentleman said that Conservative Members have not been in a maternity 1620 ward recently. I have not been in a maternityward as a customer, but I regularly visit the maternity ward in my constituency at Christmas. Our hospital encourages women to breast-feed.
§ Mr. JonesI certainly hope that it does. However, it also distributes booklets such as the one to which I referred earlier, which has "Cow and Gate" written all over it, and it distributes advertisements such as the one that I have just shown the hon. Lady.
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanHospitals in the hon. Gentleman's constituency may, but mine does not.
§ Mr. JonesI am very pleased to hear that, but I would like to know how many women in the hospital in the hon. Lady's constituency breast-feed. Perhaps she might ask them that during her next Christmas visit; she may get a shock if she does. Perhaps she would like to give me the figures now.
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanI ask every woman in the ward whether they propose to continue to breast-feed, and three out of four say that they do.
§ Mr. JonesI am very pleased to hear it, but that is not the kind of mainstream information that we have received and that the Government push out. I would like the hon. Lady to visit women in clinics and to ask them whether they are still breast-feeding. I think that she will find that they are not, because that is the current trend.
§ Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North)My daughter-in-law is currently breast-feeding. Are there not statistics available which show the percentage of mothers in the United Kingdom who are breast-feeding'? They reveal that the number is declining and that fewer women are breast-feeding now than were breast-feeding in 1980. Only 53 per cent. of mothers breast-feed their babies at age one week. That is only one statistic and there are more available. The evidence is quite clear.
§ Mr. JonesI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is quite correct and I shall refer to those figures in a moment. The fact is that many women would like to breast-feed—no doubt they are among the women whom the hon. Lady meets in her Christmas visits to the hospital. However, an awful lot of women do not continue to breast-feed and one of the reasons is the flood of advertising to which they are subjected.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Angela Browning)What?
§ Mr. JonesThe Parliamentary Secretary knows that the lowest estimate of spending by baby food manufacturers is £6 per baby. The Government spend only 16p per baby—that is hardly a level playing field. Because of the Government's shabby funding on promoting breast-feeding, for the first time UNICEF was forced to spend money in a western developed nation—in Britain in 1994. The Royal College of Midwives has been forced to produce a booklet that explains simply and fairly the nutritional advantages of mothers' milk over formula, because the Government have not done so.
The World Health Organisation code, which the Government supported and signed in 1991 and for which they reaffirmed their support in 1994, has been completely ignored. Allowing advertising in the health service represents a huge climbdown, and the Government should 1621 admit it. In another place, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, Baroness Cumberlege, stated that the new regulations go beyond the minimum directive requirements of our WHO obligations. The WHO international code on marketing breast milk substitutes states very clearly in article 6.2:
No facility of a health care system should be used for the purpose of promoting infant formula or other products within the scope of this code".The Government regulations allow advertising inpublications specialising in baby care and distributed to women through the health care system".It is clear that the Government no longer support the World Health Organisation code.In a letter of 27 February 1995, the General Synod of the Church of England said:
the new regulations … run counter to the cited articles of the International code".When speaking on the subject on 22 March, the Parliamentary Secretary had to choose her words very carefully in order to continue the sham that the Government are still following the WHO regulations. She said that the Government now only "support the aim" of the code. We hope to hear better things than the hon. Lady's admittedly uncharacteristic bluster during the previous debate on this subject.The code was never meant to be a list into which people could dip and take out whatever suited them at the time. It is a full and comprehensive safeguard, which was agreed to globally. Some 11 nations use the entire code as national law and five European countries have banned advertising of breast milk substitutes—that is, France—
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanHas the hon. Gentleman read regulation 7? It states:
No person shall export from Great Britain to a third country an infant formula which is not—Some years ago, a bunch of clergymen asked me to allow a lot of powdered milk to be distributed free in third-world countries. I asked them whether they wanted to kill all the children, because the mothers would probably have used contaminated water and made extra-strong formula. The regulations are quite clear and they must be appended to every export from this country.
- (a) labelled in an appropriate language…
- (b) labelled in such a way as to avoid any risk of confusion between an infant formula and a follow-on formula."
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse)Order. I have been rather tolerant with the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman). It is a short debate of only an hour and a half and many hon. Members are hoping to catch my eye. Long interventions of that nature do not help.
§ Mr. JonesI am not sure that the collective noun for clergymen is a "bunch"; possibly it is these days. I think that the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) is slightly confused; we are discussing the effect of the international code in this country and not in foreign countries.
§ Dame Elaine Kellett-BowmanWill the hon. Gentleman give way?
§ Mr. JonesNo, I will not give way again. We have a lot to get through.
1622 I am sure that later in the debate other hon. Members will refer to independent surveys that have shown that mothers do not want to see a ban on advertising. In fact, I think that the Parliamentary Secretary may have referred to them in the debate on 22 March. That so-called independent bit of research has been undertaken on behalf of Bounty Services Ltd., one of the major distributors of baby milk advertising to mothers in the health service. That is hardly an independent source. I have read the frankly loaded questions in its "independent" questionnaire, and I could have easily written some questions of my own that would reverse the figures that will be cited later this evening. The first question in that independent research states:
There has been a voluntary code in the UK for some years now for the purpose of ensuring that infant formula milk advertising does not cause a reduction in breastfeeding. I believe that this voluntary code should be retained and not replaced with new laws agree disagree neither".If one were to relate the truth of the matter—that there has been a voluntary code in the UK for some years now, which has not ensured that infant formula milk advertising does not cause a reduction in breast-feeding—I believe that the result would be completely different. It would be far better to ask women whether they would prefer a truly independent information package on breast-feeding. Then we would get overwhelming support from women.We may also hear later how women give up breast-feeding because of the pressure of going hack to work, which is simply not true. Most women stop breast-feeding in the first few weeks, long before going back to work. They stop because of the huge pressure from advertising and for social reasons. The truth is simple. Breast is by far the best. The Government are paying lip service to promoting breast-feeding while bottling out because of the demands of the baby milk manufacturers.
§ Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery)Ho, ho, ho.
§ Mr. JonesI am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman is awake.
The Government are more than willing to ignore the advice of all the relevant professional bodies, to put at risk the health of the nation and to increase the burden on the taxpayer simply to follow the now tired and discredited dogma that the free market always knows best. Where do those free market profits go? They go to Milupa in Germany; to Heinz and Wyeth, both of which are American companies, and own Farley's and SMA; and to Nutricia in Holland, which owns the good old English-sounding Cow and Gate.
The Government have made a serious mistake with the regulations. They should change their mind and ban baby milk and infant formula advertising as soon as possible, wherever it is promoted.
Let me leave the House with an analogy. Let us suppose that four foreign companies had developed a children's snack food, for example, which was pretty nutritious, providing most nutrients, but which caused increasing gastroenteritis and slowed brain development. Suppose that it was promoted through the education system to the tune of £6-worth of advertising per child. There would be uproar. If on top of that, once the food was tasted, the children could eat nothing else for six months, it would be a national scandal of enormous proportions. What we have in baby milk versus breast 1623 milk is not too dissimilar to the example that I have just described. Baby milk should be available but should not be advertised. The regulations allow that and should be changed.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Angela Browning)I should make it clear from the outset that I agree with everything that was said by the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) about breast-feeding being the best means of nurturing a baby. I do not think that any of us dispute that fact. He raised many points about the immunity of the child, its resistance to gastroenteritis, and so on. We have no problem with that at all and entirely agree with him. The hon. Gentleman admitted that he was a breast-fed baby, whereas in the Adjournment debate on 22 March the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) confessed to being a Cow and Gate baby. When it comes to assessing in mature adulthood their intelligence or the way in which they have thrived, I cannot see very much difference between them.
§ Mr. Alex CarlileThat is an outrage.
§ Mrs. BrowningI apologise if the hon. and learned Gentleman is outraged. I am simply forming perhaps a feminine opinion of these things. We have heard a lot of male opinion in the debate so far.
The promotion of breast-feeding and the support for it is based on medical advice that is quite unequivocal about the advantages of breast-feeding, both for the mother and for the baby. Government policies have consistently supported breast-feeding, and that is reflected in the steps that we have taken, and are still taking, to promote it. I will cite two examples, but there are more. In 1988, the Government set up the very successful joint breast-feeding initiative, as a pilot project to assess new ways of supporting mothers who choose to breast-feed. In 1992, the national breast-feeding working group was set up and fresh guidance on breast-feeding based on its good work is soon to be issued to the NHS.
There is, then, no doubt about the Government's commitment to breast-feeding, and we believe that the final form of the regulations that we are debating today is compatible with our commitment to breast-feeding. Too often, the criticism that I have heard of the Government is that the regulations have failed to implement the World Health Organisation code. The hon. Gentleman mentioned it today. It was also mentioned in the Adjournment debate on 22 March, and I make no apology for repeating what I said then.
It is not the terms of the WHO code that the Government have to implement in their detailed regulations, but the terms of the European Community legislation. Those who have criticised the Government for not implementing the code also omit one important point. The code states, as does the EC directive—this is critically important, bearing in mind the criticisms that the hon. Gentleman has made—that Governments should 1624 implement measures in a way that is appropriate to their social and legislative framework. That is what we have done.
§ Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)That may he so, but is not this country free to improve on the regulations so that they are more in line with the WHO code of practice?
§ Mrs. BrowningThe hon. Lady will appreciate that what the Government have done is to put into legislation something that has worked as a voluntary code of practice for many years.
I will now deal with specific points about advertising. Long before the draft regulations were issued for consultation, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health announced, in answer to a parliamentary question:
The Government are committed to ensuring that the existing restrictions on marketing are, at least, maintained."—[Official Report, 2 July 1992; Vol. 210, c. 680.]Bearing in mind that commitment, the Government thought it only right at least to explore other options in the draft regulations. Therefore, we initially proposed that the controls on advertising should be quite far reaching, allowing advertisements to appear only in magazines where the intended readers would be professionals involved in maternal and baby care. It was therefore no surprise that the proposed controls generated a considerable number of responses to the consultation, both from the general public and from hon. Members.In the main, reaction was split between two opposing views. One view, while supporting the proposed advertising controls, held that the Government should go even further and use the directive's option to its full extent, banning all advertising of infant formula. The opposing view was that we should not use that option at all, but should stick to the minimum controls required by the directive. The latter view drew attention to the Government's policy of deregulation and the thrust of my Ministry's legislative programme: to introduce regulation only when there is no viable alternative.
There was also a strong feeling, which I share, that such strict controls would impinge on a mother's right of access to information. Following the Adjournment debate of 22 March, my robust defence of women's right not only to choose but to make informed choices is well documented. Mothers who are not able to breast-feed, or who choose not to do so, have a right to decide for themselves what is best for them and their children. Who are we to say that a mother cannot make a judgment for herself? But she should also have enough information to enable her to make an informed decision.
Industry takes the view—and many may agree—that advertising of infant formula is not about persuading mothers not to breast-feed but to bottle-feed their babies instead; it is about giving mothers who have already decided to bottle-feed information about the infant formulae available, so that they can make their own choices in regard to the products that they wish to select. While not denying the validity of such views, however, the Government are—as I have said—fully committed to supporting the promotion of breast-feeding. We were therefore very conscious of the fact that to adopt only the minimum in the directive would mean controls which were less restrictive than those already in place under the 1625 voluntary agreement with the industry. That, we decided, did not provide the support that the promotion of breast-feeding deserves.
§ Sir Teddy Taylor (Southend, East)What is the advantage of the directive? Would it not be far better for us simply to make up our own minds?
§ Mrs. BrowningWe are simply putting into law rules that we have had until now in the form of a voluntary code. We are not adding to regulation, or detracting from it; we are simply putting into law something which has worked well, and has been agreed voluntarily for many years.
It was only after careful consideration that we concluded that the option which best served the dual purpose to which I have referred was that which has operated voluntarily and, indeed, successfully in this country since 1983. That means that advertising of infant formula will be allowed to continue—
§ Mr. Martyn JonesBy what definition has the voluntary code worked? If the Minister is going by breast-feeding rates, let me point out that they have fallen slightly since the voluntary code has been in operation.
§ Mrs. BrowningI believe that the statistics have remained static during the operation of the code. A telling statistic, however, is the fact that in the five years before the introduction of the code—1975 to 1980–breast-feeding increased by 15 per cent.
§ Mrs. BrowningNo, I am not. It must be recognised that there is a range of influences on a mother's choice between breast-feeding and bottle-feeding. We want to encourage breast-feeding, but it is not just a matter of whether the mother sees an advertisement or not; I am sure that hon. Members appreciate that many other factors are involved in the decision.
Such methods are surely the best way to ensure that mothers who choose not to breast-feed make that choice in informed circumstances with professional advice readily available to them. That does not mean, as some would argue, that manufacturers will have even more freedom to advertise. In the past week or two, I have been concerned about some of the lobbying on the issue. It seems to imply that a free-for-all exists out there when in fact the reverse is the case.
A number of restrictions apply. Local health care units will continue to make their own judgment about baby care publications—containing permitted advertisements—which they wish to accept for distribution by them, or to be available in places such as waiting rooms of antenatal clinics. They will be screened by health professionals first. The wording of the regulation also specifies that such publications must be
distributed only through the health care system".It seems only sensible that professionals in the health care system have some controls over the publications distributed through that system.Much has been made of the fact that, during the consultation, health professional bodies expressed support for a total ban on advertising, but the results of at least one independent survey, to which the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West referred, seem to suggest that some 1626 of their members think differently. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that a difference of view exists between the bodies which have made representations and the many thousands of individuals at the sharp end of health care.
The survey suggests that a ban on advertising infant formula is opposed by the majority of health care professionals involved in the care of mothers and babies. Surveys have shown that a wide range of complex social, cultural and psychological factors influence a woman's choice on how to feed a baby.
The people behind tonight's debate would have us believe that the restrained and limited amount of advertising that is permitted under the new regulations has an immense influence on mothers, and overrides all other considerations. I, for one, consider that to be nonsense and an insult to the intelligence of women, and especially of health care professionals, who will be able to monitor and vet the material.
§ Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)Last year I visited the special baby unit at Birmingham maternity hospital, which looks after premature babies. All are fed on human milk, mostly provided by the babies' mothers. Happily, there is a good record of survival, and most go home after their period in intensive care. However, one piece of information that I gleaned from my visit worried me: despite the fact that mothers had been able to express enough milk to meet their babies' needs while in intensive care, most went on to bottle-feed their babies once they had taken them home. Why should that be so, when no one doubts that all mothers want to do the best for their babies, which must mean feeding them in the way nature intended?
As we have heard, clear scientific evidence exists that not only is breast milk best, but the use of infant formulae is damaging to both babies' and mothers' health. Compared with breast-fed babies, bottle-fed infants are twice as likely to suffer from respiratory infections, and five to 10 times as likely to suffer gastroenteritis. Good evidence also exists to suggest that breast-fed babies turn out to be more intelligent—[Interruption.]—why that produces such humour, I do not know—and that breast-feeding reduces the risk of maternal breast cancer.
It is rare for a mother to be physiologically unable to breast-feed; yet it is sad fact that in Britain only about 60 per cent. of mothers start to breast-feed their babies and, worse still, after one week less than half of them continue, compared with Norway, for instance, where more than 90 per cent. of infants are still being breast-fed at three to four months.
I can testify from my own experience that breast-feeding is cheap, easy and convenient. Milk is available any time, day or night, at the correct temperature, avoiding the laborious processes involved in sterilising bottles and in infant formulae preparation. It is also enjoyable for both mother and baby, and best for the restoration of the mother's figure to its pre-pregnant state. With all those advantages, everything seems to be going for breast-feeding. Is it not strange, therefore, that so few women apparently choose to breast-feed? [Interruption.] I do not know why that creates such humour on the Conservative Benches.
1627 The Minister alluded to a number of factors which affect a woman's choice. I agree that other factors exist apart from advertising. Of course, there is too much unsuitable promotion of the role of the female breast as a secondary sexual organ, which makes it difficult for many women and their partners to relate to the breast in its other important role. I do not deny that women's breasts can and do give considerable pleasure to both sexes, but is it not a reflection of our society's strange attitudes that the naked female breast, portrayed in a manner which objectifies women as commodities for male gratification, is regarded as an acceptable daily sight on the top and bottom shelves of our local newsagent's shop whereas a mother who discreetly breast-feeds her baby in a public place is frowned upon and made to feel that she is somehow behaving indecently?
§ Sir Teddy TaylorHon. Members should appreciate the content of the regulations. The hon. Lady speaks with great sincerity, but is she aware that if she or any of her colleagues sought to publish an article in a newspaper which did not state the benefits and superiority of breast-feeding they could be subject to a substantial fine under regulation 22? I am sure that everyone, like me, is interested in what she has to say. Does she not regard this as the most monstrous example of silly bureaucracy that the European Community has ever produced?
§ Dr. JonesI think that anyone interested in this debate will regard that issue as a red herring when it comes to considering the needs of women and babies and the need to encourage breast-feeding. In fact, the EC directive gives considerable freedom to this country as to how to regulate such matters and, of course, the Government have already made clear their support for the World Health Organisation's code, which is perhaps more stringent.
I was referring to the attitudes which persist in society. I believe that they have a great deal to do with what amounts to considerable consumer resistance to breast-feeding, even though the Government—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris)Order, apologise to the hon. Lady and would be most grateful if hon. Members on the fourth Bench would hold their conversations elsewhere.
§ Dr. JonesI was talking about the consumer resistance which persists despite all the expert opinion to the effect that breast-feeding is the ideal method for feeding babies. It is in this respect that advertising is of such crucial importance, as has long been recognised in the World Health Organisation code, which stipulates that there should be no advertising to the general public of formula or other products within the scope of the code. It is a much stricter code than that in the EC directive.
The code allows dissemination of information to health care professionals but, unfortunately, in the voluntary code operated by baby milk manufacturers since the World Health Organisation code was established, it has been interpreted as allowing the advertising of infant formula milks to mothers in publications distributed through the health care system. That is just at the point when mothers are most vulnerable, and it goes completely 1628 against the WHO code which states that no facilities in the health care system should be used for the purposes of promoting infant formula.
Baby milk companies spend anything between £5 million and £12 million a year on advertising—saturating hospitals and clinics with booklets, videos and leaflets, which pretend to promote breast-feeding while using subtle messages to undermine it. They always include the statement that breast-feeding is best, but the very juxtaposition of this information with the brand name implies that the particular product is just as good. A poster that I saw recently in my GP's surgery illustrates that point well. The logo of the company responsible for the poster was prominently displayed next to a picture of a mother breast-feeding her baby.
Interestingly, the information given by the baby milk manufacturers fails to identify the actual ingredients of the formula: cows' milk which may be supplemented with beef fat, maize oil, chicken egg or large amounts of glucose syrup. The information given is selective and creates the impression that breast-feeding is difficult and that artificial feeding presents few risks. These conflicting messages undermine women's confidence in their ability to feed their own babies.
In December 1993, it seemed that this would soon become a thing of the past when the Government, as we have heard, issued draft proposals for the implementation of the EC directive which would have banned baby pictures from tins, the advertising of infant formula to the public and the issue of free samples. The role of ensuring that all mothers received unbiased information and were given the help and advice that they needed in order to make informed choices would have been the responsibility of trained health care workers, not commercial marketing. Unfortunately, despite support for the proposals from major health bodies such as the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Midwives, as well as the National Consumer Council and, in fact, some calls to strengthen the proposals to include follow-on formulae, the Government decided to put commercial interests before infant health.
§ Mr. Walter Sweeney (Vale of Glamorgan)Is it not clear from the directive that advertisers are required to indicate that breast-feeding is best?
§ Dr. JonesObviously, the hon. Gentleman was not here when I was talking about the nature of the advertising and the way in which that slogan is used to undermine breast-feeding rather than to promote it.
If Britain is to get anywhere near achieving the Government's targets on breast-feeding in the White Paper, "The Health of the Nation", we shall have to learn from the experience of countries such as Norway. There is no promotion of baby milk in Norway. Since 1970, when breast-feeding rates there were similar to those in the United Kingdom—[HoN. MEMBERS: "He is going now."] That shows the interest that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) has in the matter.
Since 1970, the Norwegian Government have had a strong policy of support for breast-feeding. All mothers have access to a mother-support network. That is to be compared with the attitude of our Government: in response to a question that I tabled in July asking what advice is given to employers about arrangements for encouraging mothers to continue breast-feeding after their 1629 return to work, the Government—both the Department of Health and the Department of Employment—unashamedly answered, "None."
If the Government are really serious in their stated support for breast-feeding, they should properly implement the WHO code and do more to promote breast-feeding through the health care system. Spending 20p per mother—compared with at least £6 per mother spent by baby milk manufacturers to promote their £119 million business—simply is not good enough.
§ Mr. David Faber (Westbury)I am delighted to make what I hope will be a brief speech. I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones) but I did not feel that his heart was in it. Having prayed against the regulations, it is ironic that only one Labour Back Bencher is here to support her Front-Bench team. There probably would have been more debate if the regulations had been debated upstairs.
The speeches of the hon. Members for Clwyd, South-West and for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) contained a true sign of some of the thoughts of new Labour and of the Labour party. We have heard that they are anti-business, that they are anti-choice, and in condemning the fact that some European companies own companies here in Britain, we have seen that they are anti-EC investment in this country. I shall not follow the hon. Member for Selly Oak down the path that she took. I found some of what she said quite incomprehensible.
I am delighted to declare a constituency interest as Cow and Gate Ltd. has its headquarters in Trowbridge in my constituency—[Interruption] I am proud to do so. The hon. Member for Selly Oak, in an intervention in the Adjournment debate of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) a couple of weeks ago, seemed in some way to question the fact that it was right for me to have introduced an Adjournment debate a year ago when I had a constituency interest in Cow and Gate. I should have thought that that is exactly what we are here for in the House of Commons—to represent businesses in our constituencies and to speak up for them and their interests. On this occasion, happily, the interests of my constituents and my own beliefs coincide, which of course does not always happen.
Cow and Gate has a long tradition, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out. I am happy to admit to being a Cow and Gate baby, as, indeed, did the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery in his Adjournment debate. The House may remember that the Minister who responded to the Adjournment debate that I secured a year ago was my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames), my hon. Friend the Minister's predecessor. We had some trouble in ascertaining that evening whether he was a Cow and Gate baby. However, I notice that The Daily Telegraph today reports that he is due to start a crash diet, and I am sure that Cow and Gate will be able to come up with a suitable recipe to help him.
As the House knows, since 1983 the rules governing the marketing of baby milk have been enshrined in the voluntary code of practice, which will in effect be formalised this evening by the regulations. However, as the Minister has said, in some respects the EC directive being implemented does not go as far as the voluntary 1630 code, and baby milk advertising will continue to be allowed, but only in publications distributed through health care professionals and in trade journals.
For the past 12 years the voluntary code has been monitored by an independent committee, most of whose members are wholly independent from the infant formula industry. The committee considers complaints against the code, which historically and traditionally have come from pressure groups, not from the general public. Few of those complaints have been upheld.
Baby milk manufacturers have taken independent steps over the years to control their marketing—the most obvious being the banning of free and subsidised supplies to the health service some years ago.
Both inside and outside the House, much has been made of the World Health Organisation code, which, as the Minister has confirmed, Britain fully supports. The code rightly seeks to promote breast-feeding as the ideal means of feeding babies, but we all know that we do not live in an ideal world. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Selly Oak says, many mothers simply cannot breast-feed, or do not wish to do so. Ironically, it is often the infant formula manufacturers that provide most of the information that is available about breast-feeding.
Parents can obtain information about breast-feeding and all the other forms of baby feeding from a variety of sources—from health professionals, from the Government, from specialist organisations and, of course, from the manufacturers. All those sources have an important role to play, and the manufacturers provide a service to health professionals and to mothers through the distribution of leaflets and through sponsorship, training and advertising, as well as by other means.
Manufacturers promote not only breast-feeding but their own products. In all, the industry hands out about 5 million leaflets a year to about 800,000 mothers. Had the draft regulations, which I opposed this time last year, been accepted, that source of information for mothers would have disappeared altogether.
Since 1983, when the voluntary code was introduced—here I disagree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and with other Opposition Members—the breast-feeding rate has remained static, at about 65 per cent. How, then, can it possibly be said that the maintenance of the status quo has resulted in a drop in breast-feeding rates?
The difference between the new EC directive being implemented tonight and the WHO code of conduct is, of course, that by law the Government have to implement the directive. At a time when all Departments, especially the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, were seeking to deregulate, we were faced with the prospect of the United Kingdom implementing a directive and going even further.
Given my past interest, I am pleased that the Government have pulled back from that intention. As has already been said, article 8 of the EC directive, which deals with advertising, says:
advertising of infant formulae shall be restricted to publications specialising in baby care and scientific publications. Member states may further restrict or prohibit such advertising.Article 8 thus allows for advertising not only in specialised baby care publications, such as Bounty books distributed within the health care system, but in baby care 1631 and parenting magazines, such as Mother and Baby and Practical Parenting, which are readily available on general sale in newsagents.
§ Dr. Lynne JonesThe hon. Gentleman has correctly said that member states may further restrict or prohibit such advertising. Does he not accept that if we implemented the WHO code that is exactly what we would be doing? Does he support the code or not?
§ Mr. FaberAs the Minister has said, we as a Government support the code. However, I have said precisely why I support what the Government are doing: I do not wish to see over-regulation, least of all in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
I was about to draw the attention of the House to regulation 17, which says that
No person shall publish or display any advertisement for an infant formula … except … in a publication specialising in baby care and distributed only through the health care system".That clearly prohibits the more general advertising that would have been allowed under article 8, which other hon. Members—some of whom may feel that the regulations are too restrictive—and manufacturers would oppose.Finally, a great deal has been made of the organisations that are opposed to advertising baby milk and of the representations that they have made to my hon. Friend the Minister. I disagree with the hon. Member for Clwyd, South-West, who questions the validity of an independent survey carried out for Bounty. He is right that Bounty may not be independent, but the company which carried out the survey—Market Trends—is independent. [Laughter.] The hon. Gentleman may laugh, but is he saying that when MORI carries out a poll for the Labour party he would question whether MORI was an independent polling organisation because the Labour party had an interest in the result of that poll? He could not possibly say that.
The independent survey was quite categoric, and showed that 93 per cent. of bottle-feeding mothers opposed a ban on advertising, as did 74 per cent. of breast-feeding mothers, 68 per cent. of midwives and 64 per cent. of health visitors. As has been pointed out, the latter two groups are made up of professionals who would vet whether such material was suitable for distribution. Those experienced professionals, in my opinion, should be listened to.
It has been alleged that the industry spends some £12 million a year on promotional materials, but I do not believe that. I know what Cow and Gate's market share is, and how much it has spent to support that market share. Either it is infinitely more competitive than its competitors, or the true figure is much lower—perhaps less than half that figure. Of that expenditure, more than 40 per cent. goes on educational material.
The debate has been about freedom of choice and the right of a mother—who, whatever others may think, knows best—to choose what to do for her baby. The Government rightly acknowledge that breast is best, and we will do everything possible to promote that. Bottle-feeding is not dangerous—it is a matter of the degree of goodness for the baby. While cigarettes can still be freely advertised it would be ludicrous to ban the limited advertising of a legal and healthy product such as baby milk.
1632 It would be insulting to mothers and to their intelligence to say that they cannot make a rational decision. [Interruption.] I hope that Opposition Front Benchers are paying attention.
§ Mr. Martyn JonesI am not intervening just to prove that I am paying attention; I should like to make two points. First, my speech was not in any way diffident—this is an important issue, and I am very sincere about what I am saying—and, secondly, the hon. Gentleman said that baby milk is not harmful. Does he not consider a 10-times higher risk of gastroenteritis to be harmful?
§ Mr. FaberAnyone would prefer babies not to have gastroenteritis, but I go back to what I said a few minutes ago. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Selly Oak said, many mothers are physically unable to breast-feed, and many do not do so for other reasons. It would be quite wrong to deprive them of the right to choose and the information that is available.
Since her well-deserved promotion, my hon. Friend the Minister has been an eloquent proponent of minimum interference mixed with plenty of good common sense. That is what we have in the regulations this evening, and I commend her on laying them before the House.
§ Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery)The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) has represented his constituency interest well tonight. One could almost hear echoes of his distinguished grandfather as he told us that babies, apparently, have never had it so good.
I was lucky enough to have an Adjournment debate on 22 March to which the Minister replied. During that debate, I told the House that I was a Cow and Gate baby. Incidentally, I was born on the same day as the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, who ate for both of us. The Minister told us during that debate that she was a mother-in-law. During her percussive reply to the debate—in which she showed a degree of petulance which, I suspect, she would not display in her relations with her offspring and offspring-in-law—she seemed to claim that those of us who criticised the Government for the regulations were somehow treating women as unintelligent creatures who were not able to make their own choice.
I too have a mother-in-law. Like the Minister, she is extremely charming, highly intelligent and very experienced and I have nothing but praise for her, even after more than a quarter of a century. I am afraid that, as an intelligent and wise woman, she would not agree for one moment with the hon. Lady.
As the hon. Member for Westbury said, in this country we have a breast-feeding rate of about 65 per cent. That is a great deal less than in some other countries, which have been much more successful in persuading mothers to breast-feed. I hope that the Minister will agree that the success of those countries is to be commended and that one should try to learn from it and to find out why, for example, there is a much higher breast-feeding rate in Norway. Is it because women in Norway are better at exercising choice? I doubt it. It is far more likely to be because the Norwegian Government have taken much more seriously the World Health Organisation's code and have enacted it.
1633 During this debate, an unseemly war of words broke out on the fourth row back below the Gangway on the Government side between the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) and the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), who were separated only by a nervous-looking referee. For this to be an argument about European regulations begs the question as to what level of action the Government should take.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones) is right—the Government should be doing more to enable women to make that informed choice, which I, like the Minister, believe they can make. Unlike the Minister, however, I suspect that they are being influenced in the opposite direction.
§ Mrs. BrowningI do not want to hold up the hon. and learned Gentleman, but he will recall that in his Adjournment debate I asked him whether he felt that he knew better than the mothers of this country—it is on the record—and he replied, "I do."
§ Mr. CarlileIt is clear from the evidence that many mothers in this country who might be persuaded to breast-feed are being persuaded to bottle-feed. That is the issue. The answer that I gave to that question is reflected in the answers that are given by people who are much more expert than me.
I do not want to take up much time, as I had my opportunity to speak on the issue on 22 March and I will certainly not repeat what I said then, but may I remind the Minister that there have been extremely telling articles in a number of distinguished medical journals, which demonstrated through proper scientific protocols that breast-feeding gives remarkably important protection to babies? They are journals such as The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, the International Journal of Epidemiology, the "Journal of Paediatrics", the "American Journal of Epidemiology", the "New Zealand Medical Journal", the Journal of Clinical Epidemiologyand—probably the most distinguished medical journal of all—The New England Journal of Medicine.
The article inThe New England Journal of Medicine was published in 1988 and written by Mayer and others. It demonstrated that the risk of the onset of diabetes is significantly reduced by breast-feeding. Diabetes is just one of the conditions to which the journals refer—others are breast cancer, respiratory infections and sudden infant death syndrome. Surely the Government should have done more than the minimum to reduce the incidence of that sort of damage and of those conditions.
Will the Minister answer one question that she did not answer in the Adjournment debate? Having drafted regulations that were considerably tougher than those that have been introduced, why did the Government change and dilute them? Although it would be cynical, the obvious answer—I am content to set it aside if she can give us a better answer—is that the Government were giving way to a large and significant lobby from the food industry.
The minimal regulations that have been introduced have taken matters not a jot further. The Minister has told us frankly that the regulations that were introduced simply put the voluntary scheme into statutory form. Is she proud of taking a step that is barely a step? Surely she should have gone further and taken some steps at least to the extent of the original draft regulations, which still fall 1634 short of the World Health Organisation code. That might have ensured better health for more babies through better health education for more young mothers.
§ Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge)I believe that breast-feeding is best, but, like other hon. Members, I know that it is not always possible for mothers to breast-feed in what is a less than perfect world. I strongly support what my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), said in her sensible and down-to-earth speech. I oppose the motion because it would place an unreasonable restriction on the advertising of infant and follow-on formulae. It would restrict the freedom of choice to which every mother is entitled.
I declare that I have a constituency interest inasmuch as Milupa Ltd. is located in my constituency, but I have no personal or financial interest in that firm. It is simply an important local employer in Uxbridge.
We heard this evening that the proportion of mothers who breast-feed to mothers who bottle-feed has hardly changed in the past 10 to 15 years, despite changes in marketing practice. No Government or commercial evidence exists to suggest that advertising has a significant influence on a mother's choice of feeding method. I know that a number of factors affect a mother's choice, as I have been married for 37 years and have a family of my own; I have therefore been able to observe some of those matters at first hand.
First, it is matter of personal preference. Many women prefer to feed their babies with infant formula rather than breast-feed them. Family and social pressures may cause a woman to make that decision. The advice that many women receive from health professionals may also lead to that decision.
The most recent Government survey gave the reasons why mothers choose not to breast-feed. First, 39 per cent. of all mothers and 47 per cent. of all first-time mothers said that they chose to use infant formula—bottle-feed—because it allowed other people to feed the baby. Secondly, there is the well-known and obviously acceptable reason that a mother has insufficient natural milk to feed her baby. Many mothers suffer physical discomfort, and some babies reject breast-feeding. Another reason is that of life style. We live in a society where the vast majority of mothers go out to work and therefore choose, by their own free will, to bottle-feed instead of breast-feed their babies.
§ Dr. Lynne JonesWill the hon. Gentleman give way?
§ Mr. ShersbyNo. The hon. Lady has had quite long enough tonight. I am under great pressure from my colleagues to be brief.
Some 39 per cent. of all mothers and 47 per cent. of first-time mothers quoted previous experience as a factor.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber) referred to the research by Market Trends Ltd. carried out in 1994. That research is persuasive because it shows that mothers want a ban on neither infant formula nor advertising, and that view is shared by a wide variety of health professionals. That survey found that 60 per cent. of health professionals were opposed to a ban. That figure included 68 per cent. of midwives and 64 per cent. Of 1635 health visitors. Those professionals are constantly concerned with the care of mothers and babies, and their views must be taken seriously.
I submit that there is a need for advertising. It is an essential communications channel for all those involved in the food chain, such as manufacturers, retailers, distributors, health professionals and consumers. Advertising provides information about products, such as details of changes to packaging, formulations and product names. At least 100 changes are made to infant formula every year.
Mothers need to be confident that the products that they are buying are safe and of a high standard. Advertising identifies the brands to parents so that they can distinguish easily between different products. It is well known that branding provides a guarantee of safety and nutritional quality backed by a reputable company name. Those are important factors that any mother—or father, for that matter—would wish to take into account in taking what is essentially a personal decision.
Advertising also provides the mother with protection against the use of inappropriate products. It ensures healthy competition between manufacturers, which in turn ensures that product innovation has progressed considerably, which increases product choice.
Those are the principal reasons why I oppose the motion. There is a terrible tendency among some Members of the House to tell mothers what is best for them, a tendency to dictate what people should eat and drink, a tendency to quote from one world organisation or another. The fact is that the British do not like it. The British want a sensible regime of the type described so wisely by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary in her admirable speech. I therefore strongly oppose the motion, and I shall vote against it in the Lobby.
§ Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North)This is a terribly serious issue—in many instances, literally a life or death issue. It is a simple issue. It cannot be right to allow the advertising of infant formula and follow-on feeds in the national health service. Common sense tells me that that cannot be right.
Two things are evident. First, mother's milk is beneficial to babies. It follows that it is detrimental to babies not to have mother's milk. That is as true of human beings as it is of any other species. Anyone who has reared animals knows the effect of not allowing the young to have their mother's milk.
Secondly, it is evident that advertising influences behaviour. We have heard two speakers from the Conservative Benches who have had to admit that in their constituencies are commercial interests whose interests they have been, to some degree, representing. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) mentioned Milupa. It is worth mentioning that Milupa sponsored a hearing room in Hillingdon hospital—a room that is used by expectant mothers—and, following the exhibition of the word "Milupa" above the entrance to the hall, sales of Milupa milk increased there by 560 per cent. Obviously, advertising has that effect.
1636 Bearing those two facts in mind, it is not surprising that people who know and understand the importance of mother's milk to children's health want to prohibit advertising of infant formula feed in the national health service. We have heard that 48 agencies, including the United Nations Children's Fund, the British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives, wished the regulations to have that effect.
It is not surprising that that is the case, and it is not surprising that the baby food industry wants promotion and advertising to continue. Of course it does; it is in its interest.
To whom should we listen—the baby food industry or the health professionals? The answer is self-evident. My next question is rather sad: to whom is the Government more likely to listen—the health professionals or the food industry? I am afraid that the answer to that is self-evident. That is why it has become self-evident to right-thinking people that it is time for the Government to fall—[Laughter.] It is because of just that sort of thing. Conservative Members find that amusing, but we should consider the public's perception of the Government's line on the subject. I think that the Government's line will be regarded with repugnance, but without surprise, by the British public.
I wish to say something on the basis of personal experience. My children were not breast-fed, for reasons that I have discussed with my wife. She experienced some initial difficulty and in hospital she was discouraged from continuing to breast-feed after her first attempt. She admits that she was influenced by the promotional activities of the powdered milk manufacturers.
I have three children. When he was younger, the eldest suffered badly from migraine. The other two children both suffer from asthma. It is well known that those conditions are likely to be exacerbated if the baby was not breast-fed and did not have the advantage of such food. I do not think that many people would question that. It is highly likely that my children would have had better health, and my two younger children would have better health now, had it not been for the influence of the baby food manufacturers on my wife's decision. My wife recognises that.
My wife is a highly intelligent woman, but she concedes that at the time she was young, inexperienced and vulnerable in her immediate post-natal condition, and was influenced by the promotional activity. How much greater will be the influence on other mothers? It is evident that thousands of mothers will be influenced in that way. It cannot be right to allow that influence to be brought to bear on mothers in those circumstances when the crucial choice as to whether they will breast-feed is made.
The line peddled by the Parliamentary Secretary is unworthy of her. I shall support the revocation of the regulations, and so should she.
§ Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent)I declare an interest in that my wife works at the centre for international child health, the research arm of Great Ormond Street hospital and a worldwide centre of excellence in the care of children.
1637 The unanimous view of specialists at the centre for international child health is that the unnecessary use of formula feed is expensive, damaging to children and harmful to mothers. That view is based on experience from all over the world, including many countries where the activities of formula feed salespeople are harmful.
The Government have put a number of health professionals in an extraordinarily difficult position because they have set targets or suggested goals for the promotion of the best health care while at the same time frustrating the professionals in a variety of different ways.
It is important for me briefly to set out some of those frustrations. If the Government are determined to improve the promotion of breast-feeding, why are they so content with such poor performance relative to most countries in Europe? We know that they are in favour of it, because they state in the White Paper "The Health of the Nation":
the Government proposes to set up a national working group to help identify and take forward action to increase the proportion of infants breastfed both at birth and at six weeks.I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will say what that group has achieved. I thought that she said in her opening remarks that, if we hang about for a few more weeks, as a result of its hard work there will be a new code. That seems a fairly minor achievement after three years of unremitting toil.I did not understand why, if Ministers are confident that their promotion of breast-feeding is as effective as commercial promotion, in booklets and videos distributed throughout the health system—which is bound to be the most effective way of reaching the target audience—one of my hon. Friends said that there was some merit in confining advertising to specialist health journals. It seems improbable that there would be very much response to advertising in a motor cycling magazine, for example.
Specialists all over the world agree that breast-feeding is better for babies, better for mothers, much less expensive than bottle milk and proprietary feeds and, therefore, better for the all-round prosperity of low-income families; yet here in the United Kingdom, we seem determined to sustain the promotional efforts of companies whose commercial advantage must be to depress as far as possible the levels of breast-feeding. That makes very little sense.
The Government's problem will become more acute as they move into health promotion rather than simply curative medicine. Governments are mostly very poor at advertising effectively; it is particularly difficult for a Conservative Government, because Conservative Governments are always concerned lest the weight of taxpayers' money behind a Government promotional scheme should be seen as unfair competition to private sector advertising campaigns. Consequently, Governments feel paralysed and do not promote their cause with anything like the vigour of the people promoting the alternative cause.
If the Government are serious about promoting breast-feeding, they have to improve their performance a great deal more than they have done so far, and the almost unanimous voice of international specialists should be more influential. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will understand the considerable frustration of the professionals who, on the one hand, are encouraged to promote the best of health and, on the other, are faced with an almost impossible position.
§ Sir Teddy Taylor (Southend, East)Views have been expressed that breast-feeding is a good idea, and that the absence of it causes migraine—which surprises those who get migraines for other reasons. Others have expressed the view strongly that it is ridiculous to interfere with the freedom of mothers and commercial companies.
I hope that, before hon. Members vote on the motion, they will read the regulations, particularly regulations 21 and 22. Hon. Members must first appreciate that we are not voting on some magic idea of whether breast-feeding is a good or a bad idea. All we are doing is implementing a European regulation which has already been passed. People who speak those rather ridiculous, sentimental words and say that it is of great moment should admit to the world that we are merely implementing legislation that Europe has applied already.
There is also the question of the Euro-thought police. In this country, we accept that people should be able to argue for or against something. They may argue with great sincerity that breast-feeding is a great idea or that it is not such a good thing. Regulation 21 says:
No person"—not me or any other hon. Member or any member of the public—shall produce or publish any informational and educational … materialthat is aimed at mothers—mothers read most relevant information—which does not promotethe benefits and superiority of breast-feeding".If academics, doctors or social workers think that that may be wrong, not only are they not allowed to publish their views but they could be fined under regulation 22.Hon. Members who intend to vote for the regulations because they think that they are good and that it is exciting to do so should appreciate that they are voting in favour of interfering with people's liberty to discuss issues and to publish their views. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that that is rubbish, and that the regulations are aimed at commercial companies.
There are restrictions on the donations that commercial companies can make. They can make donations only with the written authority of the Secretary of State or in accordance with guidelines that she has drawn up. Commercial companies—the Cow and Gates of this world—are not allowed to make donations to anyone unless they make them subject to the rules drawn up by the Secretary of State under the European directive.
Finally, what the blazes is the point of having silly rules which were drawn up by a European directive? They restrict our freedoms. The House may take a wholly different view; hon. Members may think that these sorts of issues should be discussed and written about in newspapers and magazines for mothers with infants, and that we should examine all aspects of the issue. Our freedom of speech is being restricted and undermined. That is not funny. It is making nonsense of our democracy, nonsense of the House of Commons and nonsense of our debate.
The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) may yawn, but it is not funny. We are witnessing the death of democracy, and that matters. After the hon. Member has had a yawn, I ask him to read the document. If he does not, I hope that other hon. Members will.
§ 10.2 pm
§ Sir Giles Shaw (Pudsey)I shall make some brief observations on the subject. First, I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) in speaking in the debate. I understand that it would be a desperate situation if we all had to feed at the Euro-breast; that is something that we must avoid.
There is considerable confusion as to whether, by taking the voluntary system into a statutory form, there is any significant difference in the Government's policy on promoting infant formula products. If the Parliamentary Secretary can assure me that there will be no change from the proposals that were published originally, which had the blessing of the World Health Organisation and which tried to prevent persuasion being applied to those who are perhaps less able to understand and accept the arguments, I shall be satisfied. However, I believe that there have been changes, and representations have been made to me expressing great anxiety that what is now proposed runs counter to the original proposals, and the reasons for that have not been made clear.
§ 10.3 pm
§ Mrs. BrowningWith the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my remarks on the motion will be very brief. I am grateful to the Opposition for their generosity. Despite my reassurances to the contrary, a feeling has developed during tonight's debate that somehow the Government are anti-breast-feeding. I agree with everything that has been said about the benefits of breast-feeding. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) mentioned those benefits and I assure him that I do not disagree for one minute with what he said. [Interruption.] Yes, he was bottle-fed.
I understand the great strength of feeling that this issue generates, but let me reassure the House that the Government remain committed to the promotion and the protection of breast-feeding as the best means of nurturing a baby. I remain convinced that mothers have the intelligence to decide for themselves what is best for their baby. If they cannot breast-feed or there comes a time when the baby moves from breast-feeding to bottle-feeding, it is important that mothers have informed choices. It is quite appropriate that the information should be given to them by the health care professionals to whom the information is disseminated.
I repeat the central point, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) will note this: the controls on advertising that are laid down in the regulations are just the same as those that we have had for the past 12 years under our voluntary code. There has been no relaxation in the measures. The essential change is that, with the regulations, there will be statutory backing for those controls, and without them there will not. Those who are concerned about breast-feeding should welcome that change.
I commend the regulations to the House.
§ Question put:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 233, Noes 258.
1643| Divisoin No.128] | [10.05 pm |
| AYES | |
| Abbott, Ms Diane | Feid, Frank (Birkenhead) |
| Adams, Mrs Irene | Fisher, Mark |
| Ainger, Nick | Flynn, Paul |
| Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE) | Foster, Rt Hon Derek |
| Allen, Graham | Foster, Don (Bath) |
| Alton, David | Fraser, John |
| Anderson, Donald (Swansea E) | Galbraith, Sam |
| Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale) | Gapes, Mike |
| Armstrong, Hilary | Garret, John |
| Ashton, Joe | George, Bruce |
| Austin-Walker, John | Gerrard, Neil |
| Banks, Tony (Newham NW) | Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John |
| Barron, Kevin | Godman, Dr Norman A |
| Battle, John | Godsiff, Roger |
| Bayley, Hugh | Golding, Mrs Llin |
| Beckett, Rt Hon Margaret | Gordon, Mildred |
| Beggs, Roy | Grant, Bernie (Tottenham) |
| Bell, Stuart | Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S) |
| Benn, Rt Hon Tony | Griffiths, Win (Bridgend) |
| Bennett, Andrew F | Grocott, Bruce |
| Benton, Joe | Gunnell, John |
| Bermingham, Gerald | Hain, Peter |
| Berry, Roger | Hall, Mike |
| Betts, Clive | Hanson, David |
| Blunkett, David | Hardy, Peter |
| Boateng, Paul | Harman, Ms Harriet |
| Bradley, Keith | Harvey, Nick |
| Bray, Dr Jeremy | Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy |
| Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E) | Henderson, Doug |
| Brown, N (N'c'tle upon Tyne E) | Heppell, John |
| Burden, Richard | Hill, Keith (Streatham) |
| Byers, Stephen | Hinchliffe, David |
| Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge) | Hodge, Margaret |
| Campbell-Savours, D N | Hoey, Kate |
| Canavan, Dennis | Home Robertson, John |
| Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery) | Hoon, Geoffrey |
| Chidgey, David | Howarth, George (Knowsley North) |
| Chisholm, Malcolm | Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd) |
| Church, Judith | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N) |
| Clapham, Michael | Hutton, John |
| Clark, Dr David (South Shields) | Illsley, Eric |
| Clarke, Eric (Midlothian) | Ingram, Adam |
| Clarke, Tom (Monklands W) | Jackson, Glenda (H'stead) |
| Clelland, David | Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H) |
| Clwyd, Mrs Ann | Jamieson, David |
| Coffey, Ann | Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side) |
| Cook, Frank (Stockton N) | Jones, leuan Wyn (Ynys Mon) |
| Cook, Robin (Livingston) | Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C) |
| Corbett, Robin | Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O) |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW) |
| Corston, Jean | Jowell, Tessa |
| Cousins, Jim | Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald |
| Cummings, John | Keen, Alan |
| Cunliffe, Lawrence | Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn) |
| Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE) | Khabra, Piara S |
| Dafis, Cynog | Kilfoyle, Peter |
| Darling, Alistair | Lestor, Joan (Eccles) |
| Davidson, Ian | Lewis, Terry |
| Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral) | Liddell, Mrs Helen |
| Davies, Ron (Caerphilly) | Litherland, Robert |
| Denham, John | Lloyd, Tony (Stretford) |
| Dewar, Donald | Llwyd, Elfyn |
| Dixon, Don | Loyden, Eddie |
| Dobson, Frank | Lynne, Ms Liz |
| Donohoe, Brian H | McAvoy, Thomas |
| Dowd, Jim | McCartney, Ian |
| Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth | Macdonald, Calum |
| Eagle, Ms Angela | Mackinlay, Andrew |
| Eastham, Ken | Maclennan, Robert |
| Etherington, Bill | McMaster, Gordon |
| Ewing, Mrs Margaret | McNamara, Kevin |
| Fatchett, Derek | MacShane, Denis |
| McWilliam, John | Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW) |
| Madden, Max | Rogers, Allan |
| Maddock, Diana | Rooker, Jeff |
| Mahon, Alice | Rooney, Terry |
| Marek, Dr John | Ross, Ernie (Dundee W) |
| Marshall, David (Shettleston) | Sedgemore, Brian |
| Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S) | Sheerman, Barry |
| Martlew, Eric | Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert |
| Maxton, John | Short, Clare |
| Meacher, Michael | Simpson, Alan |
| Meale, Alan | Skinner, Dennis |
| Michael, Alun | Smith, Andrew (Oxford E) |
| Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley) | Smith, Chris (Isl'ton S & F'sbury) |
| Milbum, Alan | Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent) |
| Miller, Andrew | Snape, Peter |
| Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby) | Soley,Clive |
| Moonie, Dr Lewis | Steel, Rt Hon Sir David |
| Morgan, Rhodri | Steinberg, Gerry |
| Morley, Elliot | Stevenson, George |
| Morris, Rt Hon Alfred (Wy'nshawe) | Stott, Roger |
| Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley) | Strang, Dr. Gavin |
| Morris, Rt Hon John (Aberavon) | Sutcliffe, Gerry |
| Mudie, George | Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury) |
| Mullin, Chris | Taylor, Rt Hon John D (Strgfd) |
| Murphy, Paul | Timms, Stephen |
| O'Brien, Mike (N W'kshire) | Tipping, Paddy |
| O'Brien, William (Normanton) | Touhig, Don |
| O'Hara, Edward | Turner, Dennis |
| Olner, Bill | Tyler, Paul |
| Vaz, Keith | |
| Orme, Rt Hon Stanley | Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold |
| Parry, Robert | Walley, Joan |
| Pearson, Ian | Wardell, Gareth (Gower) |
| Pendry, Tom | Wareing, Robert N |
| Pickthall, Colin | Watson, Mike |
| Pike, Peter L | Wicks, Malcolm |
| Pope, Greg | Wigley, Dafydd |
| Powell, Ray (Ogmore) | Wilson, Brian |
| Prentice, Gordon (Pendle) | Winnick, David |
| Primarolo, Dawn | Wise, Audrey |
| Purchase, Ken | Worthington, Tony |
| Quin, Ms Joyce | Wray, Jimmy |
| Radice, Giles | Young, David (Bolton SE) |
| Randall, Stuart | |
| Raynsford, Nick | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Redmond, Martin | Mrs. Barbara Roche and |
| Rendel, David | Mr. Peter Mandelson. |
| NOES | |
| Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey) | Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia |
| Aitken, Rt Hon Jonathan | Bowden, Sir Andrew |
| Alexander, Richard | Bowis, John |
| Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby) | Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes |
| Allason, Rupert (Torbay) | Brandreth, Gyles |
| Amess, David | Brazier, Julian |
| Ancram, Michael | Bright, Sir Graham |
| Arbuthnot, James | Brooke, Rt Hon Peter |
| Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham) | Brown, M (Brigg & Ct'thorpes) |
| Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv) | Browning, Mrs Angela |
| Ashby, David | Bruce, Ian (Dorset) |
| Atkins, Robert | Budgen, Nicholas |
| Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E) | Burt, Alistair |
| Atkinson, Peter (Hexham) | Butcher, John |
| Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset) | Butler, Peter |
| Baldry, Tony | Carlisle, John (Luton North) |
| Banks, Matthew (Southport) | Carlisle, Sir Kenneth (Lincoln) |
| Banks, Robert (Harrogate) | Carrington, Matthew |
| Bates, Michael | Cash, William |
| Batiste, Spencer | Channon, Rt Hon Paul |
| Bellingham, Henry | Chapman, Sydney |
| Bendall, Vivian | Clappison, James |
| Beresford, Sir Paul | Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford) |
| Biffen, Rt Hon John | Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ru'clif) |
| Bonsor, Sir Nicholas | Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey |
| Booth, Hartley | Coe, Sebastian |
| Boswell, Tim | Colvin, Michael |
| Congdon, David | Hunter, Andrew |
| Conway, Derek | Jack, Michael |
| Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st) | Jenkin, Bernard |
| Coombs, Simon (Swindon) | Jessel, Toby |
| Cope, Rt Hon Sir John | Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey |
| Cormack, Sir Patrick | Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N) |
| Couchman, James | Jones, Robert B (W Hertfdshr) |
| Cran, James | Jopling, Rt Hon Michael |
| Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire) | Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine |
| Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon) | Key, Robert |
| Davies, Quentin (Stamford) | King, Rt Hon Tom |
| Davis, David (Boothferry) | Kirkhope, Timothy |
| Day, Stephen | Knapman, Roger |
| Devlin, Tim | Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash) |
| Dicks, Terry | Knight Greg (Derby N) |
| Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen | Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n) |
| Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James | Knox, Sir David |
| Dover, Den | Kynoch, George (Kincardine) |
| Duncan, Alan | Lait Mrs Jacqui |
| Duncan-Smith, lain | Lang, Rt Hon lan |
| Dunn, Bob | Lawrence, Sir Ivan |
| Durant, Sir Anthony | Legg, Barry |
| Eggar, Rt Hon Tim | Lennox-Boyd, Sir Mark |
| Elletson, Harold | Lester, Jim (Broxtowe) |
| Emery, Rt Hon Sir Peter | Lidington, David |
| Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield) | Lightbown, David |
| Evans, Jonathan (Brecon) | Lilley, Rt Hon Peter |
| Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley) | Lloyd, Rt Hon Sir peter (Farehgm) |
| Evans, Roger (Monmouth) | Luff, Peter |
| Evennett, David | Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas |
| Faber, David | MacKay, Andrew |
| Fabricant, Michael | Maclean, David |
| Fenner, Dame Peggy | McLoughlin, Patrick |
| Field, Barry (Isle of Wight) | McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick |
| Fishburn, Dudley | Maritland, Lady Olga |
| Forman, Nigel | Malone, Gerald |
| Forsyth, Rt Hon Michael (Stirling) | |
| Forth, Eric | Mans, Keith |
| Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman | Marland, Paul |
| Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring) | Marshall, John (Hendon S) |
| Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley) | Martin, David (Portsmouth S) |
| Freeman, Rt Hon Roger | Mates, Michael |
| French, Douglas | Mellor, Rt Hon David |
| Fry, Sir Peter | Merchant, Piers |
| Gale, Roger | Mills, lain |
| Gallie, Phil | Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling) |
| Gardiner Sir George | Mitchell, Sir David (NW Hants) |
| Garnier, Edward | Moate, Sir Roger |
| Gillan, Cheryl | Monro, Sir Hector |
| Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles | Montgomery, Sr Fergus |
| Gorst, Sir John | Needham, Rt Hon Richard |
| Greenway, Harry (Ealing N) | Nelson, Anthony |
| Greenway, John (Ryedale) | Neubert, Sir Michael |
| Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N) | Newton, Rt Hon Tony |
| Hague, William | Nicholls, Patrick |
| Hamilton, Rt Hon Sir Archibald | Nicholson, David (Taunton) |
| Hamilton, Neil (Tatton) | Nicholson, Emma (Devon West) |
| Hampson, Dr Keith | Norris, Steve |
| Hannam, Sir John | Onslow, Rt Hon Sir Cranley |
| Haselhurst, Alan | Oppenheim, Phillip |
| Hawkins, Nick | Ottaway, Richard |
| Hawksley, Warren | Page, Richard |
| Hayes, Jerry | Paice, James |
| Heald, Oliver | Patnick, Sir Irvine |
| Heathcoat-Amory, David | Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth |
| Hendry, Charles | Pickles, Eric |
| Hill, James (Southampton Test) | Portillo, Rt Hon Michael |
| Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham) | Powell, William (Corby) |
| Horam, John | Rathbone, Tim |
| Hordem, Rt Hon Sir Peter | Redwood, Rt Hon John |
| Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A) | Renton, Rt Hon Tim |
| Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford) | Richards, Rod |
| Howell, Sir Ralph (North Norfolk) | Riddick, Graham |
| Hughes, Robert G (Harrow W) | Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm |
| Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W) | Robathan, Andrew |
| Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne) | Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn |
| Robertson, Raymond S. (Aberdeen South) | Taylor, John M (Solihull) |
| Temple-Morris, Peter | |
| Robinson, Mark (Somerton) | Thomason, Roy |
| Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne) | Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V) |
| Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent) | Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N) |
| Sackville, Tom | Thornton, Sir Malcolm |
| Sainsbury, Rt Hon Sir Timothy | Thumham, Peter |
| Scott, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas | Townend, John (Bridlington) |
| Shaw, David (Dover) | Townsend, Cyril D (Bexl'yh'th) |
| Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey) | Tracey, Richard |
| Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian | Tredinnick, David |
| Shepherd, Colin (Hereford) | Trend, Michael |
| Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge) | Trotter, Neville |
| Shersby, Michael | Twinn, Drlan |
| Sims, Roger | Vaughan, Sir Gerard |
| Skeet, Sir Trevor | Waldegrave, Rt Hon William |
| Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield) | Walden, George |
| Soames, Nicholas | Walker, Bill (N Tayside) |
| Spencer, Sir Derek | Waller, Gary |
| Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset) | Waterson, Nigel |
| Spicer, Michael (S Worcs) | Watts, John |
| Spink, Dr Robert | Whitney, Ray |
| Whittingdale, John | |
| Spring, Richard | Widdecombe, Ann |
| Sproat, lain | Wilkinson, John |
| Squire, Robin (Hornchurch) | Willetts, David |
| Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John | Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld) |
| Steen, Anthony | Wolfson, Mark |
| Stephen, Michael | Wood, Timothy |
| Stem, Michael | Yeo, Tim |
| Stewart, Allan | Young, Rt Hon Sir George |
| Streeter, Gary | |
| Sumberg, David | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Sweeney, Walter | Mr. Bowen Wells and |
| Sykes, John | Mr. Simon Burns. |
§ Question accordingly negatived.