My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Allan—despite his wish to invite people to kick our balls—and the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, for securing the debate to discuss these regulations. I also thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its report on this, and I thank all noble Lords for their constructive discussion on how to tackle the pressing challenge on obesity. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, in particular, for her thoughtful contribution showing the complexities of the subject with regard to the impact on eating disorders, as well as obesity.
I like to think that we are all agreed on the scale and the gravity of the issue at hand. Data from the latest child measurement programme, as mentioned by others, shows that 38% of children leaving primary school were either overweight or living with obesity. One in four were living with obesity. This, as we know, is fuelled by the regular overconsumption of food and drink that is high in calories, sugar and fat—or HFSS food and drink for short. As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, mentioned, we know that being overweight or living with obesity at a young age increases the risk of being overweight as an adult which, in turn, significantly increases the risk of diabetes, coronary heart disease, musculoskeletal issues and certain cancers. This impacts on both the individual’s well-being and wider society. As we all know, it comes at a very high cost. Not only does it cost the NHS £6.5 billion a year in the latest estimates—there is an economic cost estimated to be as much as £58 billion. For all those reasons, this Government are committed to tackling obesity: it is the morally and fiscally responsible thing to do.
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I would like to think that the steps we have taken so far actually do show a well-thought-out approach of meeting our goal of halving childhood obesity by 2030. If we look back at those, we see that in October 2022 we introduced restrictions on where products that are high in fat, sugar and salt can be placed in stores. If you walked around our supermarkets today, you would see a big change in their look and feel. Our conservative estimates suggest that these restrictions alone will reduce excess calorie consumption by children by 50 calories a day. This would reduce the number of children living with obesity by over 400,000 over 25 years. We expect that those restrictions will be the most impactful policy in tackling obesity and early data from Kantar—the data provider in this area—shows that these results are starting to come through.
In April 2022, we implemented regulations requiring large out-of-home businesses such as restaurants, cafés and takeaways to provide calorie labelling on the food they sell, which is estimated to reduce calorific intake by eight calories per day. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, about alcohol labelling, but I note there are a number of low-calorie beers—this is close to my own heart—and other low-calorie alcohol. In fact, if you look closely at the label, you can see the number of calories. However, you do have to look very closely, so I think he makes a good point about making
people more aware of them, as happens with menus. As I said, those out-of-home restrictions reduce intake by eight calories per day. The other big thing we did—again, there was cross-party support for all these things—was the soft drinks industry levy, which has reduced sugar content by almost 50% in the last five years. That is estimated to reduce calorific intake by 18 calories per day. So these three measures—these three solid actions—reduce excess calories by an estimated 76 calories per day.
I now turn to what the Government think the impact of the advertising restrictions will be. Restricting advertising of these products when children are likely to see it is estimated to reduce their calorific intake by two calories per day. To get this right: the measures introduced to date reduce intake by 76 calories per day, and the ad restrictions will reduce it by two calories per day; in other words, our actions to date—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked what our actions have done—make up 95% of the reduction. What we are discussing tonight is equivalent to roughly 2%.
So what is the big win that is still out there, as mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Merron and Lady Bull? What are the things that are going to really move the dial? Actually, it is the reformulation of food. This is the thing that Nesta estimates can reduce calorie intake by another 30 to 40 calories per day; that is, it would be 15 times more impactful than the advertising ban. How can we do this? I was asked earlier for examples of voluntary reductions working. The sugary drinks tax reduced the level of sugar in milk-based drinks by 30%. Why was that? Basically, the producers wanted to reformulate their foods to reduce the impact of the tax. We needed to give industry the incentive, and the industry took it.
Why is this relevant to an advertising ban? As mentioned earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Allan, and others, advertising does work, and producers want to be able to advertise their foods. So signalling that we are going to put an advertising ban in place is a very sensible carrot-and-stick approach. The stick is the advertising ban. It will not have much impact in terms of calories, but it will have an impact on the producers, because advertising works. The carrot is to avoid that ban by reformulating the product. That is the big win we are talking about here; that will have the big impact of 30 to 40 calories per day. However, we need to give producers the time to implement that.
If you follow the thinking through, we need to spend time with the industry and Ofcom to consult. We need to get their input. We need to show them that we are serious in what we are doing, and we need to give them the time to change by reformulating their recipes, testing them on consumers and then putting them out there into the marketplace. Those are the actions that are going to make the difference—not the banning of the ads, but the actual action of signalling that we are banning them and giving industry the time to reformulate its products. That is the voluntary approach I am talking about.
Again, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, asked me for examples of where a voluntary approach has worked. I can give another example: the restrictions on so-called BOGOF—buy one get one free—which is another
area where we have been criticised for delays. The voluntary action there has already seen Tesco and Sainsbury’s, which represent 42% of the market, change the way they approach this type of promotion. That is another example of where you signal a change and the industry changes to take it into account.
That is the approach we are trying to show. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked what we care most about: the health of the nation or the profits of the broadcasters. Of course, it is the health of the nation, but what we have here is a sensible approach, working with industry to improve the health of the nation by getting it to reformulate its food through a voluntary method, using the impact of a threatened ban on advertising to leverage that and make it happen. That is the big step tonight—that reduction of 30 to 40 calories—which, to answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, will be how we are going to reduce childhood obesity still further by 2030. Those are the steps we are taking on this. That is what we mean in terms of this approach, and how we see the impact of this SI.
I take very seriously the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, about the department’s action generally on SIs. The staff will know that this is something I brought up at a “meet the Ministers” session. It is something I have written out on, because our approach, to be candid, has not been good enough in all this. I absolutely accept that criticism, and I have made the department aware of the seriousness of this. I know that this will take time to come through, but I can only say on my part that that is something we have been taking seriously.
As ever, I hope that I have managed to give some understanding of our approach, but I will write in detail to all noble Lords who have spoken tonight to make sure I have covered all the questions that they raised. This is something we are serious about and a challenge on which we have taken major action. As I said, our actions to date are estimated to have made a calorific reduction of 76; the advertising ban only two. The big win which we are still to go after, and which I think this ban, done in the right way, will achieve, is the reformulation of such foods, which is another 30 to 40 calories—15 times more impact. That is where the prize is. I hope that shows the seriousness of what we are trying to do: driving forward a wider package of measures to tackle obesity, of which the advertising restrictions are just one part. As I mentioned, reformulation is now the real prize to go after.
I hope I have reassured noble Lords that the Government are committed to this overarching aim through greater restrictions on advertising less healthy foods and reducing childhood obesity through a number of well-thought-out measures to encourage the consumption of healthier foods.