Ban on unhealthy food adverts on Transport for London network

Being tasked with producing a policy document really is not the same thing as being legally empowered, responsible and obligated for legal and regulatory purposes. In April 2013, public health was transferred to local authorities under the Health and Social Care Act, 2012. Since 2013, UK local authorities have been responsible for improving the health of their local populations. In London the responsibilityfor publc health lies with the Boroughs and not with the Mayor of London and/or the GLA. I have explained to you the extant of the Mayor's statutory health responsibilities (ie his legal responsibility). This issue is off topic anyway though  I have never said that the Mayor is not entitled to views on public health. The topic is food advertising and what I have been saying is that TFL is not a competent body to adjudicate on advertising standards and should refrain from formulating its own censorship policies wrt such material. It's pointless engaging in further discussion on this issue as you do not seem to understand or able to accept the issues of principle a ban raises.

That's why you have a mayor who is playing with ideas to ban pictures of food on the transport network rather than

PS - I'll be off off to work on a TFL tube in a mo. I'll be standing on the platform and sitting on the tube, holding up a copy of today's Metro and City AM. Know what? Those papers will be carrying the fast food ads TFL refuses to display. Awww... feeling cheated? Never mind - why not simply ban passengers from reading those papers on your trains (Well hello, Virgin trains is hwere it ends...)  

The only public health issue for which the Mayor has any statutory health responsibility is air quality. He should stick to fixing that, rather than getting TFL to censor pictures of food he doesn't approve of. It's a dangerous precedent. Why not ban all ads of expensive Apple Iphone ads from the tube? Their overuse is giving many young people psychological problems...  Why not ban ads of junk vtamin tablets and supplements? They make people poorer but no healthier... Why not ban all new car advertising? Rich drivers are polluting London's air and depleting resoources... I could go on but I won't because I understand that I live in a free society where you can advertise anything legal - and let the public decide what they buy. Neither the mayor nor TFL should set themselves up as custodians of what products and services the public is alowed to see. Pure cant.

The examples of bans you list have been nationally enacted with national laws and standards behind them. If you want to live in a little City state with rules dictated by a Mayor, good luck. I'm not up for it. It's the same with the ULEZ proposals: SK is about to penalise poorer car owners by forcing their older cars off the road  via an effective  "tax" or high daily use charge. If their cars are good enough to receive an MOT his policy is disproportionate. And ineffective. Sensible changes need national co-ordination to have any impact. So you are never going to convince me that TFL should regulate what food ads people are allowed to see anymore than it should control what entertainments or clothes choices they are exposed to in advertising.  Having raised a bunch of kids to adulthood myself, I found it better to allow them to try things out for themselves - including junk food. We are powerless to prevent exposure to it anyway with kids birthday parties in McD's etc. The only real control that works in the long run is to EDUCATE children about healthy choices and to introduce them to wise choices at home. No good shoving everything you don't like under the carpet - no matter how "in control" and good it makes you feel personally. Yes - it is repressive to prohibit images of things you don't personally approve of and that are only harmful when consumed to excess. Silly and pointless.

TFL wants to regulate advertising to an even greater extent than at present: totalitarian and repressive nonsense. Back to the key objection - it does not have the expertise to take on such a role. It does not have  the mandate. It does not have the authority - legally or morally to be the arbiter of what is acceptable. What next?  A "dress code" for the tube and the bus, perhaps? Suits and ties for men. No bare legs or short skirts for women? No burkhas? No whistling or humming in public? Once you start, where does it stop? Who defines what is "reasonable"? Not TFL or the Mayor & that's for sure. If you want to do something about obesity, just stop people from snacking & drinking on the network  (it's a repulsive habit and encourages lots of others to do the same - and far more successfully than any amount of advertising can ever do. (Via a psychological process of establishing "social norms" about what constitutes acceptable public behaviour.)

All I can go on is my experience (so please accept it if yours is different). I commute long distances, often tired and hungry, and despite knowing better than to eat unhealthy food, I have to say these ads have an impact on me. There have been times (gulp) when I have resorted to a chocolate bar or a cola as a result of the endless bombardment. I imagine it's even more difficult for people who are not so health-conscious or aware of the risks of regular consumption. Or young people with pocket cash and even less awareness or risk-awareness due to age. Add to that the fact that junk food is WAY cheaper than healthy alternatives, I honestly don't know how people can avoid it!

My feel is that, if we already restrict alcohol adverts and outright ban cigarette adverts, the ad landscape is already a regulated space. Plus, with all the research coming out about thelinks between these junk foods and cancer, it seems like sense to me to restrict junk ads. 

In any case the food is out there, whether on the high street or on a shop shelf. Honestly, we all know what a Big Mac, cola, or chocolate bar tastes like - they sorta sell themselves on the shelves! All these ads seem overkill honestly.

I've just looked at TFL ad policy & it ALREADY regulates the heck out of what can be shown. It acknowledges the Law and the ASA are the regulator but then introduces a thicket of totally subjective rules based on what "it" thinks is "reasonable". Well, many other people may disgaree both now and in future about that particular question. Eg - I don't thnk it "unreasonable" that Madonalds should be allowed to advertise, say,  a bigMac on a bus - while there are some people (like you?) posting here who may want to object. Some people can't seem to understand that it is essentially people's lack of self-control that makes them eat too much fattening food - not tube adverts. The final listed TFL rule even says that an ad will be refused if  "it is unacceptable for some other substantial reason (which TfL will identify and explain as reasonably required)". Talk about a catchall! You write as if TFL is an indpenent nation state. It's not - and neither is the GLA. TFL assets are public property and it needs to observe the laws and standards commonly observed throughout the UK. It would be all too easy for it to chart its own course and end up refelcting eg the peculiar sensitivities of the Tory party (when there's A Tory Mayor like BJ) or with some other "take" on the acceptability of advertising imagery (when there's a Labour Mayor like SK). It is predictable and obvious just how radically they might disgare on such questions of what is "acceptable". TFL should re-write its adverting rules and abandon its self-appointed powers of censorship,

In 1962 Italy banned smoking adverts. Question “in Europe, what country have the most smokers in the 1970’s ? - surprise it was Italy. Banning adverts doesn’t work neither do Nanny states. If you are a sheep you will always be a sheep. 

The dictator Mayor Khan is trying to be a big fish in a big pond but unfortunately he is only a little fish in a big pond. He should focus on policing and knife crime than “ Good food “ that sounds a bit like part of my “ 5 a day!!!” Another term that really means nothing.

TFL is mandated to run a regional transport network. It was not estalished and is not competent to regulate advertising; it's simply obvious that any advertisement that does not break either UK law or the national public regulatory guidance that governs advertising should be freely displayable. Once we decide that every organisation that carries advertising can display only advertising of which it approves then we no longer have any consitency or fairness in the way we are approaching the matter. TFL will be wide open to successful judicial challenge if it ventures into this quagmire. In any event, any legal ads TFL does not accept would simply be carried in other media. Ultimately,  the proposal is a piece of grandtanding and accomplishes nothing practical. On the other hand, banning the consumption of food generally on public transport is a perfectly reasonable action that will contribute more to the reduction of junk food consumption than anything else TFL can fairly do. It will also prevent other passengers from being made sick...

I think it is a small step in the right direction to ban junk food adverts.  But it would be more effective to BAN THE EATING OF JUNK FOOD ON PUBLIC TRASNPORT. I use buses every day for work and at least twice a week I have to endure the smell of chips etcetera on my bus journey.  Here's a radical idea..., and a solution for the KE1961, who thinks the justification for fast food is that people get jobs..., BRING BACK BUS CONDUCTORS to ensure that people are not offending others with their junk food.  A return of conductors would resolve a whole heap of TfL problems in one fell swoop: ensure that the mobile get up and offer the priority seats to those who need then; ensure that prams are prioritiesed over selfush people witht their sutiaces; ensure that people do not put their dirty feet on the seats, etc etc.  Oh, sorry KE1961, does this sound like I want a "nanny state"?

A  laughably bad proposal. TFL cannot become involved in adjudicating these matters. Don't even think about it. The authority with the jurisdiction is the Advertising Standards Authority - it's their job to judge if adverts are acceptable. We cannot have one law for the underground and bus sides and another law for newspapers etc. If TFL wants to do something sensible about food, and over which has a legitimate jurisdiction, it shoul ban the consumption of food by passengers on trains and on buses. The smell can be really offensive - whether or not the food in question is "healthy".

Obviously these adverts work, or companies would not used them.  But how much revenue do they bring in?  The mayor has frozen fare rises, and I would like to know how this has affected the TfL budget, and what projects have had to be cut as a result.  Unless we are going to tax private vehicles (which have a much larger environmental impact) and use that money to fund more and better public transport, money for the system has to come from somewhere.