[Lord Speaker] Second oral question, the Lord Bishop of Gloucester
[Bishop of Gloucester] I beg leave to ask the question standing in my name on the order
paper.
[Lord Kamall] The government acknowledges
the possible link between advertising, body image and mental health,
including the potential harms such a link may cause.
The government intends to use the online
advertising programme consultation, which closed on the 8th of June,
to develop the evidence base on this issue.
Our priority is to ensure that any intervention is
evidence based and makes a real and positive difference.
The government will set out the exact approach, having assessed the evidence.
[Bishop of Gloucester] My Lords, with my #liedentity campaign, I've spoken to many young people
about their worth not coming from how they look.
In the other place,
the Prime Minister assured the honourable member for Bosworth, Dr.
Luke Evans, that he would look at a body image initiative as part of
the mental health plan.
Given that Norway has recently introduced a retouched images law,
can the noble Lord, the minister, say what assessment the government has made
about the potential merits of labelling digitally altered body images
used for commercial purposes?
[Lord Kamall] Well, I should pay tribute to the Right Reverend Prelate
and the campaign that the Right Reverend Prelate has been involved in on this.
It is an important issue and we're still learning a lot.
As the Right Reverend Prelate rightly says, Norway is about to introduce it.
France and Israel have introduced it in the past.
Sadly, the evidence coming from those studies is limited at the moment
as to their effectiveness.
There is also a debate when people look at this
whether it should be stopping those images in the first place
rather than allowing altered images and then putting a warning.
What's the most effective way? And we need to see more evidence.
Baroness Brinton, remote contribution.
[Baroness Brinton] My Lords
the 2021 Children's Society Good Childhood report
shows that one in seven girls and one in eight boys
are particularly unhappy about their appearance.
Young people who are not happy with their lives at 14
are more likely than others to have symptoms of mental health issues by 17,
including instances of self-harm and suicide attempts.
Despite the government's promises of future funding for mental health
support for schools and CAMHS, it's clear that young people are not getting
that initial frontline support that they need now.
So how soon will there be mental health counsellors in every secondary school.
[Lord Kamall] One of the things
when you look at the area of children, mental health, but also the fact of body
image, it varies among age groups, but also within age groups.
At the moment, we've identified poor body image or concerns about poor body image
as a risk factor that leads to mental health conditions
but it's not necessarily a mental health condition in itself.
What we have to look at is how much of this
was present in the playground before the age of social media?
People being called nicknames for their appearance
but it's being amplified now by social media, and we all look and work
with social media companies and others to find the most effective solution.
[Baroness Bull] My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way.
My Lords, despite the fact that advertising prescription
only medicines like botulinum toxin to the general public is already illegal,
Botox is still widely advertised online by providers of cosmetic procedures.
Given the risks of amateur and poor procedures to physical and mental health,
what steps will government take to improve the enforcement of existing rules
so that the online environment is free of these illegal adverts?
[Lord Kamall] One of the issues
looked at in the online advertising programme has been a range of issues,
including the advertising, including social media, including where people
get their messages from in the first place and then the most effective way.
What do we ban?
What do we give advice on?
What do we give warnings to?
It's an incredibly complicated issue.
But what we're looking at is we're looking through
lots of evidence that came in as a result of the consultation.
[Lord Robathan] My Lords, what assessment has the government
made of the link between body images, obesity,
childhood obesity, diabetes, cancer, and early death?
[Lord Kamall] Well, my noble friend asks me
a very concise question, which requires a less than concise answer.
But all I will say is that clearly there is a link.
We understand the link between obesity and type two diabetes, for example,
but one of the difficult things in this area,
as with much in health care, is getting the right balance.
The more emphasis we put on tackling obesity,
the unintended consequences - it affects people who have eating disorders.
And we now see that in restaurants now, you have calorie labelling
but some charities that work with people with eating disorders are concerned
that it may have a negative impact on people with eating disorders.
It's always a difficult balance.
We've got to try and achieve that.
[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall] My Lords, since the noble Lord and others have raised the issue
of social media in this area.
What assessment has he made or does he know of the
influence of social influencers in this area?
And particularly where they are supported by commercial deals,
where certain kinds of advertising are part of what they're
paid to promote?
[Lord Kamall] Well, the noble Baroness makes a really important point
about the contributing factor to people having poor body image.
And we do know that there are influencers that promote certain products.
We do know that quite often influencers alter their own image.
So it's almost an idealistic image, whatever that means.
And then young people feel inadequate by looking at that.
But we also have to recognise it's not just young people.
It's people across a range.
Even older people.
It might be as gentle as a comb over.
But if that makes them feel better, great.
We have to look at this issue in its entirety.
I know as part of the online advertising programme,
this is one of the issues that's being looked at.
[Baroness Verma] Could my noble
friend tell me what the government would do
in trying to look at reducing or banning lightening creams?
Because among the South Asian and Black community,
we do have an issue around
a push for lightening creams and it does affect the wellbeing
of a lot of young people who desperately want to fit in.
[Lord Kamall] Well, if I have been accurately briefed, can I begin
by wishing my noble friend a very happy birthday.
It's a really important issue
and it's about ethnic minorities and people of different colours.
First of all, young people want to see people who look like them on TV
and in the media, as role models to show that they are part of everyday society.
But there's also within certain ethnic groups, I'm sure the noble Baroness
will be aware, sadly, there is this issue of colourism
where there sometimes is a preference for people within a certain ethnic
minority of a lighter colour and, people who are darker
skinned, are discriminated or
not necessarily abused, but there's a preference for lighter colours.
This is all being looked at and I think what my noble friend says
is what an incredibly complicated area this is.
It's really important we look at all these issues.
Is it size, is it appearance?
Is it colour?
[Baroness Merron] Early intervention is crucial.
Treatment for mental health conditions such as eating disorders
have consistently unacceptable waiting times.
At the end of last year, a record 2,100
children and young people were waiting
for treatment, with demand continuing to rise.
So can the noble Lord, the minister, tell your Lordships' House
when the waiting times will mean timely intervention?
And what is the government doing to recruit, retain
and train the necessary levels of staffing to be able
to provide the treatment that is so desperately needed.
[Lord Kamall] Well, I hope the noble Baroness will recognise that before the pandemic
we were actually reaching the targets for many of the young people
on waiting times.
Clearly, as with many things in our health and social care service,
the pandemic has had a huge impact,
not only on delaying people who should have had treatment
before the pandemic, but actually increasing the
number of people seeking help on mental health issues.
Now, as I'm sure noble Lords will recognise, for young people,
those two years were a massive proportion of their life compared to us,
and that those are lost years for them and it has led to many mental health issues.
As the noble Baroness will know, we have announced
a draft Mental Health Bill, the NHS long term plan
will have an additional £2.3 billion a year for mental services by 2023/24,
and will see an extra 2 million people able to access support.
This will all take time and we have to work through that, work through that.
[Baroness Burt of Solihull] Thank you, noble
Lords have been rightly criticising advertising
and promoting an unrealistic body image, but the government itself isn't helping.
In April last year,
the Women and Equalities Committee published a report on body image
saying the government's own obesity strategy actually contributes
to eating disorders and mental ill health.
The minister is nodding so in the interest of brevity.
I'll just ask him,
does he agree with the recommendations of this committee and
can he tell the House what the government
is doing to remedy its approach?
[Lord Kamall] Well, I'm sure the noble Baroness will acknowledge
that many noble Lords and many people in society
want to do something about obesity and healthy eating, but I think it
demonstrates what a complex area this is and what we have to always be
aware of on any policy issues are unintended consequences.
And what we want is to be very careful about the impact on people
with eating disorders, but also the interventions - do they actually work
in the first place, and does that lead to unintended consequences rather than positive results.
One example is the calorie labelling on menus, for example.
We know there are concerns from eating disorder charities.
At the same time, we don't know whether the evidence is,
whether it will help reduce obesity.
And we need to wait for that evidence to come through.