Children’s Health: Ultra-processed Foods

Earl of Dundee Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, I join in thanking my noble friend Lady Jenkin for introducing this debate. I will mention a few aspects: the low-cost food shopping paradox, what the Government should now further do, and the shared threat of ultra-processed foods both here and abroad.

On overweight in childhood, there is a well-known paradox: due to cheap, high-calorie nutrition, food insecurity and obesity come together. That is because, so far, our national food system lacks sufficient incentives for healthy eating for those on low incomes, and it equally fails to provide enough disincentives against unhealthy eating in the first place.

Following this anomaly, inferred government action might appear to be fairly obvious: make healthy and sustainable food affordable, stop the junk-food cycle and invest competently in children’s diets.

As my noble friend Lady Jenkin implied, the Government have to restrict, to a far greater extent than at present, advertisements promoting unhealthy food. On the balance between disincentives and incentives, a good idea would be to increase tax on ultra-processed foods and use this revenue to fund healthy-eating vouchers for low-income families—vouchers that can be traded only for fresh food and vegetables.

The Government must insist on clear and legible shop label warnings against unhealthy foods, including those with hidden sugars. Brazil has warning labels on foods that contain an excess of salt, sugar and saturated fats. We could do the same, with a particular warning on all ultra-processed foods, or at least on those with excesses of salt, sugar and saturated fats—such warnings would, therefore, cover most ultra-processed foods in any case.

The Government ought to invest now in healthy food to be provided by all schools. Current guidelines on school lunches should become stricter, with less ultra-processed foods, or at any rate a reduced availability of foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fats. Then, as has been done in other countries, the Government must update national dietary advice to emphasise fresh or minimally processed foods.

To replace the present negative trend with a positive one, these are just some of the measures that we ought to adopt, along with other relevant expedients. First, does my noble friend the Minister agree that we should do so now and early on in the new Session, and, secondly, within the international community? In thus starting competently to address this shared problem, thereby and to the benefit of so many, the United Kingdom can then provide an example of proper common sense and good practice.