Day 047 - 07 Nov 94 - Page 14
1 regulations, and things like that.
2 A. Well, we have quite frequent contact with a number of
3 government departments and other agencies which have an
4 influence on policy making -- the Office of Fair Trading,
5 the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, people of that kind.
6
7 So we are in contact with officials, sometimes with
8 Ministers or MPs, on subjects which seem to be of
9 significance. For example, if I see that a Member of
10 Parliament has asked a question or made remarks in the
11 House of Commons on a subject which I consider we know
12 quite a lot about, I might contact him or her and ask if
13 they want to discuss it further.
14
15 So that is a part of the kind of thing we do.
16
17 Q. Right. Would it be fair to say that you do not want
18 tougher regulations than those that are already in place?
19 A. No, that is not always quite correct. There are a
20 number of areas in which we have proposed -- I, myself,
21 have proposed or my organisation has proposed -- new rules,
22 because we felt there was a need for the codes to be
23 updated in certain respects.
24
25 For example, we were very much instrumental in getting a
26 section on environmental claims added to both the British
27 Code of Advertising Practice, administered by the ASA, and
28 also the ITC Code. In both cases, their response was: "I
29 do not think we need that, because there is enough in the
30 general sections of the code", but I persuaded them that it
31 would be a good idea to have a section on environmental
32 claims, which were added five years ago; and that was at
33 our instigation.
34
35 Similarly, I chaired a group in the International Chamber
36 of Commerce, developing an international set of rules on
37 environmental claims in advertising; and those have been
38 adopted in many countries.
39
40 So there certainly are occasions in which we feel the world
41 has moved on a bit and the code needs re-wording or
42 modifying or having something added or, in some cases,
43 having something dropped; and that process is a continuous
44 process, and I or anyone else will be in a position to
45 suggest such changes.
46
47 Q. The input that you mentioned that you had in persuading the
48 ITC to bring in codes on environmental claims, was that
49 something to do -- well, is not it right that the
50 government was thinking about bringing in statutory
51 regulations on that area?
52 A. No. I do not think they were at that time. They did
53 later. But, at that time, I am not aware that there was
54 any discussion on that subject in government circles.
55 There have, however, begun to be complaints both to the ASA
56 and the ITC. We picked up those complaints. We discussed
57 them with a number of our member companies, and we said,
58 "There is a subject here which needs progressing as fast
59 as possible. We will advise both the ASA and the ITC that
60 we need a section on the code for this, because there is
