According to The Times yesterday:
A Tory MP has criticised the government’s about-turn on banning promotional deals on unhealthy food, warning Boris Johnson that he will never level up Britain when so many are overweight.
Jo Gideon, MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, is not alone. Other critics include former Conservative leader William Hague, Tory peer Lord Bethell and the ubiquitous Jamie Oliver.
Banning cheaper meal deals and restricting so-called ‘junk food’ ads to reduce obesity is straight from the tobacco control playbook. Employing the levelling up argument is another familiar if more recent tactic.
Anti-smoking activists were quick to jump on that bandwagon, arguing that if the Government is to achieve its levelling up ambition greater resources must be focussed on quit smoking initiatives in lower socio-economic areas where a higher proportion of adults smoke.
I addressed the issue in Forest’s submission to Javed Khan’s ‘independent’ tobacco review, whose recommendations will be announced next week.
Health inequalities – levelling up or dumbing down?
Like ‘levelling up’ it has become fashionable to talk about ‘health inequalities’, often at the same time. Public health campaigners often associate the latter with a poor choice of lifestyle. Smoking, obesity and alcohol are increasingly mentioned in the context of health inequalities and there seems to be an unchallenged consensus that tackling all three should be part of the levelling up process. We see it differently. Reducing smoking rates by forcing people to quit isn’t levelling up, it’s dumbing down because it treats smokers – the majority of whom are from lower socio-economic groups – as if they are uneducated idiots for smoking in the first place.
Instead of insulting people’s intelligence and curtailing their freedoms with further restrictions on the sale of tobacco or where you can light up, government should focus less on ‘helping’ people stop smoking and more on creating the conditions for them to make ‘healthier’ choices for themselves (not have ‘healthier’ choices imposed on them) because it’s clear that while many people smoke for pleasure, many also smoke to relieve the stresses that may be caused by their circumstances or their environment.
Instead of punishing adults who smoke with punitive taxation and other measures designed to force them to quit a habit many enjoy or take comfort from, government should focus on the underlying reasons why a greater proportion of people from lower socio-economic backgrounds become smokers in the first place. It may take longer to achieve the government’s ‘smoke free’ target but we believe that’s a small price to pay if, in the meantime, ministers are addressing far more important issues such as housing and jobs.
Instead of spending public money on anti-smoking campaigns and smoking cessation services for which there is limited demand, how about improving more important amenities like transport, parks and shopping areas that improve the local environment and benefit everyone? That, to us, is the essence of levelling up – improving people’s lives not through coercion, prohibition or denormalisation but by tackling some of the factors that lead some people to eat, drink or smoke to excess. That said, if people still want to smoke that decision MUST be respected because in a liberal society freedom of choice should be paramount.
The same goes for food, a subject I first talked about in relation to the war on tobacco in 2004 when I gave a speech to the Independent Seminar for the Open Society (ISOS), a one-day conference for sixth formers organised by the Adam Smith Institute. Subject: ‘Food is the new tobacco’.
You can’t force people to lose weight or eat ‘healthy’ food. Educate and inform but there should be no place for prohibition and coercion. Sound familiar?
While I welcome the Government’s u-turn on banning two-for-one and other promotional meal deals, it’s only temporary and the proposal will very likely return sooner rather than later, in much the same way that plain packaging of tobacco was debated, ruled out, then implemented following a change of heart brought on by an impending general election.
For the moment the Government appears to have been influenced by justified fears that banning promotional deals will simply increase the cost of living for poorer families.
The same thinking should apply to tobacco duty which is due to be increased by inflation plus two per cent later this year. At the current rate of inflation that would mean an increase of more than ten per cent on the cost of tobacco. If fuel and alcohol duty can be frozen I don’t see why tobacco duty can’t be frozen too, especially in light of the current economic situation.
(To those that argue 'government needs the money', let's not forget that punitive taxation fuels illicit trade – ergo, a loss of revenue, potentially billions of pounds per annum.)
As for the so-called tobacco levy - tobacco control’s current holy grail - we all know who will end up paying and it won’t be the tobacco companies who will simply pass it on to the consumer. On the cost of living argument alone the Government should shoot this idea down once and for all but there’s another issue too.
Whatever happened to choice and personal responsibility or have we completely abandoned those principles?
The news about the Government’s change of heart on promotional meal deals has been depicted as a blow to the nanny state. Frankly, it’s barely a scratch. Successive UK governments - Labour, Coalition, Conservative - have done everything they can to foster a nanny/bully state and there's no sign that will be reversed significantly under the present government.
We’ve seen minor reversals before but politicians and public health activists have always come roaring back with demands for even greater control over our private lives and personal choices, and too often they’ve succeeded.
What disappoints me is how many people complaining about the war on 'junk food' ignored our warnings that food (and alcohol) would be targeted after tobacco. Even now very few will lift a finger to defend smoking despite the fact that the tobacco control strategy will continue to be applied to other products.
Ah well, I've given up trying to convince some of them to support our cause. They've made their bed and they can jolly well lie in it.