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Food Products (Marketing to Children) Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The more we undermine responsible parenthood by measures such as this Bill, the less responsible parenthood there will be. My hon. Friend the Member for Wantage, who speaks from the Front Bench, has not particularly blamed anybody for his make-up, size and so on. The former head teacher of the school where my children are being educated reminded all the parents collectively, before they got too ambitious for their children, that ““Genes travel.”” That is very relevant to this debate on shape, size and so on. We are in danger of creating a climate where people who have a different shape from others and who are not so lean and lanky get bullied in the school playground—they may get called Billy Bunter. I cited the Scottish statistics on children's diets, which show that the fatter people may not have a more unhealthy food intake than the thinner ones, so we must take the extremely complex issue of metabolism into account in this debate. The Bill does not address that, other than by trying to simplify the matter, to condemn all food advertising and to undermine individual responsibility. Like adults, children need to experience new foods, and the best way of their doing so is probably in a family setting, around the table with their parents at home. If they are exposed in that setting to healthy food, preferably home-prepared food—they may even have been encouraged to do some cooking—that is good news. One of my children has recently discovered how to make flapjacks, and as a result he knows what goes into a flapjack. That is much more important than trying to read the back of a label on a manufactured flapjack, which is probably much less nutritious than one that has been baked at home.