Baby Foods: Nutrition and Marketing

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point. This is why we are investing so much in the Start for Life programme, building on all the evidence and experience from the Sure Start model. That model worked because it brought all the other professionals together under one roof. Parents could go through the door, and nobody knew why they were going through that door; there was no stigma attached to it. The other aspect is peer support: the sharing of experiences with other parents. Weaning children is difficult—trust me, I have been there. Parents need huge support. The pressure from advertising, and externally, is immense. The noble Baroness is right: no one agency can do this. It is a team effort, and we all need to pull together.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is this not a question of the private sector yet again failing to introduce the required changes? Over many years, the previous Government failed to do anything about this. Do we not need proper regulation, introduced as quickly as possible?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

I have answered the point before. Our focus is on improving the situation; however, we kid ourselves if we think that it will be solved just by forms of regulation. This is a much bigger issue: it is about changing culture. It is about making sure that we take young women—and dads—forward on this journey and that we look at every opportunity we have to improve the performance of the industry, to call it out when it is failing and to ensure that we have the best evidence to take things forward.