Plant-based Diet

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I am sure that I could fill up the whole of Question Time trying to address all those questions. I thank the noble Baroness for her interest and for the work that she undertook with the committee. Many of the recommendations from that report are being taken forward through the Government’s 10-year health plan. The plan has set out action to tackle the obesity crisis with a broad policy package aimed at improving food environments and ensuring better access for everyone. As regards the school food standards, we are working on this—coming up with standards to define the food and drinks that must be provided to schools and which must be restricted. We are looking particularly at foods that are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar.

I think it is important to respond to the point raised by the noble Baroness concerning the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. Members of that committee have a duty to act in the public interest, in accordance with the Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees, and to be independent and professionally impartial. The committee’s code of practice has been updated recently. Individuals are now eligible to be members only if they do not hold significant interests in relation to the food, drink, diet or supplement industries. So we can be assured that they are acting on impartial and independent grounds when they provide the Government with advice.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

One thing that is important is clarity for farmers, and one idea could be to link farm payments to soil health and other good practices, through the SFI. I ask my noble friend the Minister: will the 25-year farming road map still be published this year, and will it be published along with other pieces of work, including the land use strategy?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. As she suggests, the farming road map is part of a package of land-based strategies being published by Defra, which will include the food strategy. It will set out what is needed to restore nature, address climate change and support the production of healthy and sustainable food. The land use framework to which she referred will express the land use implications of these objectives and how the Government intend to manage trade-offs between them. The road map itself will describe how the farming sector will be supported to deliver land management and land use changes. I can say that it will be published in due course.

My noble friend mentioned the sustainable farming incentive. This pays farmers and land managers to carry out actions that support the sustainable production of food and boost farm productivity and resilience while protecting and enhancing the environment. I am pleased to say to your Lordships’ House that the SFI now has more than 39,000 multi-year live agreements, and is not only delivering sustainable food production and nature recovery for today and the years ahead but putting money back in farmers’ pockets.