My Lords, like the other noble Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for initiating this debate. Again like other noble Lords, I have read articles in preparation for the debate, most of which seem to concern children and food. So I, too, can throw statistics around like confetti; for example, that 60 per cent of children regularly eat crisps after school; 40 per cent eat biscuits; 30 per cent eat chocolate; and sales are predicted to rise by 20 per cent in the next four years. Or this: spending on advertising aimed at children rose sixfold in the years up to 1998. It was stated in the other place that on children's television a child is likely to see between six and 11 adverts every hour for food high in sugar, salt and fat. The more I read the statistics, the more my heart sank.

I then read the ASA's own document, its code of practice—still more statistics. A snapshot survey carried out in July 2003 showed that the compliance rates for non-broadcasting adverts directed at children was 98 per cent. My heart lifted a little as I read the standards with which advertisers are required to comply; for example:

"An advertisement should contain nothing that is likely to result in physical, mental or moral harm to children".

I was reassured to know that compliance rates in the non-broadcasting world are so high. I have done all my background homework.

However, I began to be troubled again, because none of the lobbying groups seemed to be getting to the core of the matter. Not one of them was challenging the assumption implicit in all this: that children, even the very young, are branded and defined simply and only as consumers. Not one of them asked whether that was an adequate definition of childhood. Not one asked whether that was what childhood was for.

It would be fascinating to discover when the word "consumer" began to fashion the very ways in which we think, and when it entered our national vocabulary. My guess is that it came into prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Gradually the stranglehold that that word now has on all aspects of society has tightened its grip, and now even the smallest of children are defined by it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, brought to our attention a quotation that I also discovered. It states:

"The pre-school market is worth £4.3 billion per annum".

I do not know how one could begin to create such a statistic, but the use of the word "market" is the giveaway. The youngest child is no longer a miracle, a gift or a source of wonder but is simply regarded as a consumer. I find that morally degrading, because it assumes that the child is nothing more than a manipulatable and voracious computerised dustbin.

The problem that the debate has highlighted relates not simply to the physical, mental or emotional well-being of children, important though all those are. It actually relates to what we as a society think that childhood is for. I am much taken with the Swedish experience, which refers to the need for children to have safe zones in which they are protected from commercial influences. At least, that assumes that childhood has a kind of moral integrity as a stage in our human development that we, as adults, should have a duty to safeguard. I would go further and argue that childhood is also a place in which things of the spirit must be given room to grow. Of course, I would claim that all of us—children included—are made in the image of God.

I am not defined by what I consume. I am defined—in my terms, at any rate—by my relationship with God and with my neighbour and by my destiny in God. Why are we, as adults in Britain today, so lacking in moral courage that we do not wish to protect children from exploitative and commercial pressure? Why are we so spiritually bereft as a nation that one third of parents provide a television set in the bedroom for the under-3s? I find that hauntingly sad.

I warmly welcome the debate. At heart, it is about whether, as a nation, we are prepared to submit to a definition of childhood that sees children simply as consumers or whether we have the courage to say that childhood needs protection from exploitation because only in that way can the spiritual needs and rights of children be given a place to grow and flourish. We are in serious danger of producing a nation of fat and greedy children with thin and starving souls. Is that really the best that we, as adults, can do?