30 January 2025
The UK Government has responded to many strong recommendations in the House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee inquiry report, Recipe for Health: a plan to fix our broken food system.
The House of Lords report called on the Government to:
- Act immediately to strengthen regulation on the composition and marketing of follow-on, toddler and growing up milks, banning the promotion of such products.” (Chapter 6)
The Government’s response is disappointing and non-committal, implying that there are already ‘comprehensive regulations’ in place on composition, labelling and marketing. This ignores the many serious weaknesses in current Government policy that are clearly identified in the inquiry report.(i)
Whilst acknowledging that the formulas for older babies (follow-on and toddler formulas) are unnecessary and contribute 50% of free sugar intakes in young children, the Government promises only to review evidence, carefully consider its options and work with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as it develops its final recommendations for Government.
Baby Milk Action’s submission to the inquiry focused on the need to strengthen UK marketing controls and global trading standards for foods for infants and young children.
The inquiry report also recommended that the Government should:
- Now make a decisive shift away from voluntary measures to a system of mandatory regulation of the food industry and exclude food businesses that derive more than a proportion of sales (to be defined by the Food Standards Agency) from less healthy products from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention. This should also apply to the industry associations that represent these businesses.
For 45-years Baby Milk Action and its partners in the International Baby Food Action Network have assisted governments in the adoption and implementation of health protective legislation to support parents/carers and remove the obstacles the face when trying to follow public health recommendations, in particular the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, and the 20 WHA Resolutions and decisions that clarify, strengthen and keep pace with science and marketing developments. This Code is a critically important safeguard for infant health and survival that protects parents‘ rights to make informed decisions about infant and young child feeding free from commercial influence.
- Baby Milk Action, First Steps Nutrition Trust the Baby Feeding Law Group were among the150 written and oral submissions made to the Inquiry.
- The marketing practices that the UK should prohibit now exist in the digital space. Any new legislation must articulate implementation and enforcement mechanisms, specifying legal duties of compliance to the appropriate actors. These actors include social media platforms, online advertisers, internet service providers etc – not just product producers and distributors.
- The WHO/UNICEF/IBFAN 2024 Code Status Report
- The Committee report will be debated in the House of Lords on 28 March, when the Committee Chair and members, other members of the House, and Government and Opposition spokespeople will set out their views on the Committee’s findings.
________________________________
Other Recommendations from the House of Lords report:
Chapter 3: the role of industry
The government must:
“Now make a decisive shift away from voluntary measures to a system of mandatory regulation of the food industry.” (Paragraph 126)
“Fundamentally reshape the incentives for the food industry through a coherent and integrated set of policy interventions to reduce the production and consumption of less healthy foods, and drive production and sales of healthier foods.” (Paragraph 126)
“Exclude food businesses that derive more than a proportion of sales (to be defined by the Food Standards Agency) from less healthy products from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention. This should also apply to the industry associations that represent these businesses.” (Paragraph 128)
“Devise and publish by the end of 2025 a code of conduct on ministerial and officials’ meetings (whether in-person or virtually) with food businesses, to be employed consistently across all government departments. The minutes of all such meetings should be published.” (Paragraph 129)
Chapter 6: infants, children and young people Pregnancy, infancy and early years
“The Government must:
“Set goals for improving maternal and infant nutrition to prevent childhood obesity, develop a comprehensive and integrated strategy by the end of 2025 to meet those goals drawing on evidence from existing initiatives, and report on progress to Parliament annually thereafter.” (Paragraph 380)
“Act immediately to strengthen regulation on the composition and marketing of follow-on, toddler and growing up milks, banning the promotion of such products.” (Paragraph 385)
“Legislate by the end of 2025 to set strong mandatory compositional and marketing standards for commercial infant foods. The policy must be determined independent of industry input.” (Paragraph 395)
“Immediately review food standards for early years settings, making them mandatory, supporting early years settings to meet them and establishing a performance framework.” (Paragraph 400)