Stitch up? Not so much

Another gloomy Monday and another round of dark headlines focusing on the food industry’s shady relationship with government.

Today it was the turn of the Daily Mail’s front page to reveal “secret stitch up” meetings with ministers, which it suggests were out to nobble the chances of tough new regulations on sugar.

The “revelations” emerge weeks after a BMJ investigation into a similar round of meetings between the alcohol industry and the government, which preceded the dramatic U-turn on minimum pricing.

But like that shoddy effort, the Mail story is full of holes and, if anything, this “investigation” is even less shocking.

The Mail lists a catalogue of clandestine meetings, ranging between July 2011 and July 2013. Among them, brace yourselves, was the fact that then-health secretary Andrew Lansley attended a dinner at the Food and Drink Federation in April 2012.

So he did; in fact he was guest speaker at the event, where he called on the industry to prove the Responsibility Deal could “achieve more, more quickly, by voluntary action than would be achieved by costly, intrusive regulation”.

Whether you agree with that statement or not, it’s hardly surprising or sinister that the FDF would want the serving health secretary to attend or that he would volunteer his services, with around 250 of the industry’s biggest companies represented – not including the press. It certainly wasn’t secret.

Former health minister Anna Soubry also features in these “stitch up” meetings, including one with Tragus group, which owns Café Rouge. This would be the meeting that Soubry mentioned to The Grocer just days later, claiming she had been “astonished” by the positive attitude of the company towards “doing the right thing”.

Again you can argue with her view that this type of meeting works better than regulation, but it was patently not “unprecedented access to the heart of government”.

Soubry is the same health minister whose departure from the role was described as a “tragedy” by Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of the Action on Sugar campaign. Yet the Mail quotes MacGregor as calling such meetings a “scandal”, while predicting he will get short shrift when his group meets heath secretary Jeremy Hunt for the first time tonight.

Since July 2013, the most recent meeting “uncovered”, a number of NGOs have quit the Responsibility Deal over the government’s failure to back MUP and plain packs for cigarettes. They have continued to fight for these policies, and a sugar tax, having many meetings with DH officials and MPs along the way, including the launch of the National Obesity Awareness Week last month at the House of Commons pavilion. So much for being squeezed out of the corridors of power – unless you count being cast out onto Parliament’s river terrace.

It’s worth recalling that a year ago Tam Fry, spokesman for the National Obesity Forum, attacked a report by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, claiming it ignored the key issues affecting childhood obesity, and had “degenerated into political point scoring” not backed by any evidence. “I’m afraid ministers will take one look at it and shunt it to one side,” he said. Yet last month Fry admitted NOF’s headline-generating report ‘State of the Nation’s Waistline’ had “no evidence” and defended its shock tactics.

Unless health campaigners start arguing on the facts, who could blame Jeremy Hunt if he does, in fact, shunt them aside tonight?