Baroness Walmsley, Chair of the Comittee led the debate.
-
10:05:36
Debate: Report from the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee: ‘Recipe for health: a plan to fix our broken food system’
-
10:06:06
Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat)
.…..I find it sad that this is despite the Government being elected on some very worthwhile promises—first, to have the healthiest generation of children ever. However, there is no commitment to reviewing the school food standards and the eligibility for and value of free school meals. There is no commitment to increase healthy start payments or to address the deluge of advertising of junk food to teenagers or the poor regulation of foods advertised for infants and toddlers. Will the Government start by implementing all the recommendations of the CMA report on formula milk, and then tackle the shocking and harmful content and misleading advertising and labelling of food for young children?
been treatment through expensive anti-obesity jabs—which would cripple the NHS budget according to NESTA—rather than primary prevention by ensuring everyone can get a healthy diet. I do not deny jabs can be appropriate and successful, but prevention is cheaper.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour) 10:25:55
Baroness Browning (Conservative) 10:32:22
Lord Krebs (Crossbench)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for being an excellent chair of this Select Committee inquiry and for her outstanding introduction to this debate. I also express thanks to our specialist adviser, Professor Martin White from Cambridge University, who kept us on the straight and narrow, as well as our clerk and policy analyst.
I declare two interests. First, I am the chair of the World Cancer Research Fund’s global expert panel, which reviews the scientific evidence for links between diet, obesity and cancer risk. Secondly, I am a scientific adviser to Marks & Spencer.
…..However, before I finish, I want to say a few words about ultra-processed food. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe, mentioned, there were some disagreements in our committee, and our chair handled those disagreements very skilfully. One of them was about whether UPF—ultra-processed food—is dangerous, or whether it is largely a red herring. The committee was divided on this, and I was on the red herring end of the spectrum. Why? There are three reasons. First, as Chris van Tulleken and others told us, UPF is not suitable as a policy tool, not least because experts often disagree when they try to apply it to individual foods. In one study we were referred to, a panel of experts agreed on only four out of 231 foods they were asked to classify as UPF or not. Secondly, there is no convincing scientific evidence to show that processing, as opposed to the content of food, is harmful to human health—of course, that evidence base may change. Thirdly, most UPF is also HFSS. The foods that are deemed to be UPF but not HFSS, according to some experts, include things such as oat milk, vegan sausages, wholemeal bread from the supermarket and pre-packed cooked vegetables. Do we really want to suggest to the public that these foods are dangerous to eat? No, let us concentrate on HFSS, where the evidence for harm is robust and the definition is already used in regulation.
The Earl of Caithness (Conservative) 10:44:26
Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Labour) 10:50:39
Baroness Meyer (Conservative) 10:56:24
Baroness Suttie (Liberal Democrat). 11:02:49
…..The statistics are stark and becoming worse. In the UK, over 20% of children are already too heavy and around 10% are already obese when they start primary school. As the Food Foundation’s most recent report states, children in the most deprived fifth of the population are over twice as likely to be living with obesity as those in the least deprived fifth by their first year of school. A few weeks ago, on a four-hour train journey back from Scotland, I watched as a mother fed her toddler three little plastic sachets of fruit puree. Misleadingly, these fruit sachets are marketed as a health product. The mother no doubt thought that she was giving her child a healthy option, but just one of those sachets contains the recommended daily allowance of sugar for an adult. It is surely wrong that our shops can sell baby foods and drinks that are packed full of sugar but have no traffic light warning or label on them.
The same applies to so-called follow-on and growing-up milk. For example, a one or two year-old consuming Alpro soya growing-up milk—which states on the pack that it is low in sugars—would typically be consuming over three times the recommended maximum total daily sugars intake from that product alone. Does the Minister not agree that warning labels about sugar content on children’s food products are urgently needed? The noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, made the case so very powerfully that provision of a healthy school meal in early years can have an extremely positive impact on behaviour and concentration in class. It can also encourage healthy eating and good nutrition habits at a young age. A healthy and nutritious hot meal is nearly always going to be healthier than a packed-lunch option, which is often full of ultra-processed products. A friend’s nine year-old daughter, Livia, recently told me that she was deeply concerned by what her schoolmates were eating on a daily basis. During the public hearings for this committee, we heard the experiences of many young people; they really do care about these issues. There have been rumours surrounding cuts in the provision of school meals. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the Government’s plan regarding school meals.
Baroness Boycott (Crossbench) 11:09:14
I will use my few minutes to talk about one of our recommendations—the extent to which the food industry is involved in the policy of food at the moment. Take, for instance, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition—SACN. It is the main adviser to the Government on food policy and, if you think it is unbiased, you would be wrong. Of the 16 members of SACN, 14 of them directly or indirectly take money from the food industry. They might brush it aside by saying, “I declare my interests”, but, if you take money, it changes minds.
SACN’s statement on ultra-processed food concluded that the associations between higher UPF consumption and adverse health outcomes was “concerning”. It is well known that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and I argued a bit about this in the committee. However, the noble Lord is highly respected, so I urge him to look at the overwhelming weight of evidence and stop quibbling at the edges about whether this is HFSS or UPF. The overwhelming body of evidence is that what we and our children are eating is bad for us and is making us fat and ill. We should all combine forces to understand that simple fact and park the quarrels.
Food policy must always be made without the industry being in the room, because we have two different aims. They want to make money; we want to make people well. It is very interesting to note that when George Osborne imposed the sugar tax, he made it completely on his own—not literally but with an incredibly tight, tiny team of civil servants and advisers. He then went out and told the industry, which got on with it. Like many others, I have been interested this week to see the announcement of the newly created advisory board. There are 16 members and seven represent one or other face of big food. The press release states that this board will help to set the ambition, but the ambition of McCain Foods is to sell a lot more chips. Indeed, one of the shocking things that we heard on our committee came from one of the young people on Bite Back: when he buys a bus ticket to get to school, on the reverse of the ticket it offers free chips if he comes into McDonald’s with it. Therefore, I cannot believe that McCain Foods is really after our help. Yes, it has some sterling people: Anna Taylor, who is CEO of the Food Foundation; Susan Jebb; Professor Chris Whitty; and Ravi Gurumurthy from Nesta. I am glad that they are there, but can they hold the line against the lobbying might of Greencore, Sofina Foods, Kerry Group, McCain Foods, Sainsbury’s, Cranswick, Bidcorp Group? A line on Bidcorp Group’s website says that: “Bidfood has identified many opportunities for value-add light processing and bespoke manufacture to make our customers’ lives easier”.
Is that what we want in our food strategy? Of course, we must wait and see, but the industry must not be allowed to health-wash itself by sitting alongside people such as Anna. Alongside the board, we have the Food and Drink Federation, which plays a very shadowy role within this setup. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and I—who tabled the Motion for this committee and were so pleased when we got it and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—went to a meeting where the Food and Drink Federation unveiled its new strategy. I do know how much this will be involved in the food strategy, but its idea was that all healthy foods across the country should have a new label: “Feel Better”. This could be plastered on to every packet of salad, brown rice or unprocessed meat. The British public would then happily change their ways. It would be a real win for the industry, because it would not have to label anything that is not quite so good. The federation is a famed lobbyist for big food and I think it offered to come before our committee.Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Conservative). 11:15:15
Lord Bethell (Conservative) 11:21:11
My Lords, it is a great honour to follow my noble friend Lady Jenkin who has been talking on these issues way before it became so fashionable and drew me into this debate in the first place. I would like to say thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and all those who sat on this committee, who have done an incredible job and made a very persuasive case. I also draw attention to my role as adviser to Oviva, a company that provides treatment to those with obesity, and the role of my wife, who is a non-executive director of Tesco, the British retailer.
Others have spoken about the impact of obesity on our health, including the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and my noble friend Lady Meyer. As a moment of personal testimony, I saw how we, as a country, suffered during the pandemic because 64% of adults were carrying too much weight and their bodies were weakened and could not fight the virus properly. The ONS study on obesity and mortality found emphatic evidence that the risk of death from coronavirus was double for those who had obesity. That is true in other realms of health and it is an observation that plays out in every hospital, every GP surgery and every morgue in the country, every day of the week.
Others, including the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Caithness have talked about how all this damages our economy. The evidence is absolutely overwhelming; I will not go over it all, but I will mention the correspondence I had with the OBR—emphatic and clear arbiters of our future financial security. It wrote that the rising tide of chronic health conditions linked to obesity is increasing the years that people spend in ill-health, and that is having a material impact on our ability to sustain the national debt. The Army cannot recruit fit soldiers; our businesses cannot find a fit workforce; and our communities are struggling to cope with obesity-related poor health—we simply cannot go on like this.
The response from the Government is particularly disappointing given that the political mood on this issue has completely changed. Polling evidence overwhelmingly points to strong support for government interventions. National newspapers have become health conscious, campaigning on issues such as fast food outlets near schools. Major civic organisations like children’s charities and the health champions are clamouring for action. Directors for public health, local authority chiefs and NHS chiefs published compelling evidence of harm, thoughtful recommendations for change and alarm about the cost of exciting but expensive obesity treatments.
Countries such as Norway, Portugal, Mexico, Canada and Chile are leading the way by clamping down on junk food advertising and, most strikingly, in America, the popular End Chronic Disease movement has expressed popular anger towards the junk food industry. That was seen in the influence of Robert Kennedy on the presidential election. His appointment at Secretary of State for Health, while quite a strange event in world history, has shown how popular anger about our declining health is boiling over into the mainstream.
We have reached a point where the junk food industry can no longer be regarded as a constructive contributor to our national interest, or a benign employer of our people, or a supplier of nutritious sustenance to feed our people. Companies such as Nestlé, Mondelēz, Coca-Cola, Mars, Ferrero and others are making billions of pounds of profits. Their CEOs make tens of millions of pounds each year. Meanwhile, our children face a life of poor health and addiction; the NHS is running nearly 100 child obesity clinics, at great expense; and the UK workforce is quitting employment because of the cardiovascular, MSK and consequential mental health problems associated with obesity. The junk food giants should be regarded as a leech on our public finances; free riders that are not paying for the externalities that they create; and a threat to both our national security and our public finances. That is why the Government’s response is so disappointing. It calls for “co-ordination and collaboration”, which they say is essential. I just do not agree.
We need hard, regulatory guard-rails. We need to put health promotion at the centre of the Food Standards Agency priorities. We need fiscal intervention, starting with the sugar tax. We need a monopoly investigation by the CMA. We need to start taking the junk food industry out of the conversation, as we have done with the tobacco industry and should do with the pornography industry. The points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, on that really resonated.
If we have learned anything, it is that the micro-intervention approach does not work. It did not work with tobacco, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, said. Some 80 years after it was proven that cigarettes kill, 13% of the country still smokes. The micro-intervention approach does not work for businesses, which have a fiduciary obligation to maximise profits. As a result, they waste huge amounts of shareholder value and creative energy battling fines and red tape. It is not working for our NHS, our economy or our national security. Instead, we need a clear and emphatic approach that protects the consumer and allows the industry to survive. Collaboration with today’s junk food industry just will not get us there.
Baroness Freeman of Steventon (Crossbench) 11:27:30
Baroness Coffey (Conservative). 11:33:52
Baroness Goudie (Labour) 11:40:27
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Conservative) 11:46:59
Baroness Batters (Crossbench) 11:50:47
Lord Rennard (Liberal Democrat) 11:59:37
Baroness Manzoor (Conservative)
Baroness Merron, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care (Labour)
….I have heard the committee’s concern that it takes too long to make new policy commitments. I was reflecting on this when preparing for this debate and I take that point. The Government’s response, which was made not many months after coming into government, was made in January this year but it was started as soon as we received the committee’s very welcome report. Being realistic, the Government were not ready to make firm positions on introducing, or indeed rejecting, many of the committee’s more specific…Of course, policies will be informed by strategy. I am going to use the word “complex” again, but the food system—noble Lords have illustrated this today, as they have done on many occasions—is very complex. There is a need to engage and consult with a wide range of stakeholders in government, in industry and in the health and academic sector to make sure that policies will be effective and proportionate. To take the necessary steps, we need to have the machinery in place to drive progress, bringing together many government departments including the Department for Education—I refer the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, to this point—as well as non-government stakeholders. We also need to develop and drive forward an agenda for change…..The food strategy and the health mission are both about delivering change—the very premise on which this Government were elected. I can give the assurance that all policy options are being fully considered, recognising the need to engage with a wide range of government and non-government stakeholders. This includes engaging with the food industry, as my noble friend Lord Brooke acknowledged….Our food environment, as noble Lords have rightly said, needs to improve. The food industry shapes our food environment, and it needs to be part of the solution. That is a point to which the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, brought her experience in three very relevant departments to bear in this debate. Engaging in this way is vital to allow us to understand how changes may impact the food supply chain and how to deal with possible risks……On the points about mandatory regulation, our action will not stop with the actions we have already taken. I have heard the concerns and the urgings to be bold. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair was quoted. I remember him saying: “We’re at our best when at our boldest”….The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned a Cambridge report which said that hundreds of policies have been failing because of a voluntary approach. The reference to the balance of voluntary and mandatory measures in the Government’s response to the committee’s report did not mean a reliance on wholly voluntary measures, nor was it “giving in”—to quote the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—to industry lobbying. I have already outlined the steps that we have taken, and we will fulfil our commitment to banning the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s. We will not shy away from taking necessary mandatory action. I believe we have already shown ourselves to be going in that direction where it is needed and where it will produce the best result.
Mandatory regulation can drive change and establish a level playing field between companies which have already taken voluntary action and those which have yet to do so.
On the important matter of supporting children, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, that taking a life course approach is key to our commitment to give every child the best start in life. Again, I reassure noble Lords that the Department for Education has an important role in achieving that. All of this starts with helping families to access support for feeding their baby. For those who use infant formula, it is vital that they can access affordable and high-quality products—something that I know is of interest to the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. We therefore welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s formula report. We will consider carefully the recommendations and will respond to it. The affordability and availability of healthy food is key for those trying to feed their family. We are committed to providing a healthy diet for young people and providing support to families who need it most through our Healthy Start scheme.
The issue of mandatory school food standards was raised by my noble friend Lady Brown and the noble Baronesses, Lady Goudie and Lady Freeman, among others. These standards are in place throughout the school day. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that they apply to the new school breakfast clubs. I have heard the concerns of noble Lords. The DfE keeps the approach to school food and ensuring compliance under review. Our two departments will continue to work together.
I turn quickly to ultra-processed foods. I agree that further research is needed to establish why and whether these foods are unhealthy: is it the processing or the nutritional content? As we have heard in the debate from the noble Lords, Lord Krebs and Lord McColl, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Suttie, there is a difference of opinion about this. That is why the SACN regularly reviews new and emerging evidence and will publish statements on UPFs and non-sugar sweeteners. We are also commissioning new research.
….Once again, I thank the committee for its report. It articulated the seriousness of the challenge. I hope that, today, I have described some of the mechanisms through which we will work to drive change. We know we have to go further, where previous Governments have not done so. I look forward to being able to set out further actions that we will take in due course.recommendations. For me, that perhaps explains or illustrates some of the reasons behind the Government’s response.
Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat)
12:33:48
….We had very hard-hitting speeches about children’s food from the noble Baronesses, Lady Brown of Silvertown and Lady Suttie, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others. I say to the Minister that nobody can criticise a Government which do stuff to improve the diet of children, so they should go ahead and do as much as they can on that. They will not get any criticism or push-back from the population.