Infant Feeding Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateNusrat Ghani
Main Page: Nusrat Ghani (Conservative - Sussex Weald)Department Debates - View all Nusrat Ghani's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the hon. Member for bringing this important issue to the Chamber. My wife and I are expecting our first in the coming weeks, so as hon. Members will expect, this is an important subject in which I am quickly upskilling myself. In my constituency, I have a similar group called Exmouth Bosom Buddies, which does a fantastic job that we know relieves pressure on the NHS. What more does the hon. Member think can be done to allow such groups to grow, thrive and flourish so that they can continue their vital work?
Before the hon. Member gets to her feet, I am just reminded of the midwifery-led Crowborough birthing unit, which helps the lovely mums in my constituency.
The hon. Gentleman highlights how important it is to have that community-based support in an area. Unfortunately, not every mother across the UK can say the same. There are areas where they have to travel up to an hour by car to attend that sort of group, and I will come on to that point.
When I had my daughter, five years after my son, the support that I had relied on had all but vanished. The Milk group was now being run out of, in effect, a broom cupboard at my local leisure centre, with no opportunity to socialise with other mums. Only six months later, the pandemic hit and my daughter’s health visitor reviews were done via Zoom, often without my daughter even on the screen. The local children and family centre in my constituency never reopened in the same way after the pandemic.
I was one of the lucky ones because I had already built my village around me five years earlier and I had a network of friends and family that I could call on. However, for those who have become new mothers in the last decade, that support has been all but vaporised, with community support groups patchy and often delivered by volunteers or those wonderful midwives in their time off.
It is essential to acknowledge and support those parents who cannot or choose not to breastfeed, to ensure that they feel empowered and confident in the decisions they make for their children’s nutrition and wellbeing. I am a proud advocate of every parent having choice, but that choice should be an informed one. Currently, it is not a level playing field, with formula companies preying on the vulnerability of parents.
The Competition and Markets Authority launched a market study into the formula industry in February 2024 and published its results earlier this year. The study provided a comprehensive, in-depth and up-to-date exploration of the infant formula market in the UK through a consultative process that has offered unique insights into the industry. A short extract from the CMA’s overview of its findings states:
“parents are often in vulnerable circumstances when they first make choices about whether and which infant formula to use, their brand choice is often based on incomplete or unclear information, and they are typically then reluctant to switch brands. Against this backdrop, manufacturers place significant emphasis on building their brands—including through their willingness to supply the NHS below cost—and differentiating their products to attract parents, rather than competing strongly on price. And price competition between retailers has typically been weak…Our analysis indicates that these features, in combination, are leading to poor outcomes for parents in terms of the choices they make and prices they pay for infant formula.”
In short, a vulnerable, extremely tired new parent is making choices on which formula to buy, but the claims on boxes of commercial infant formula are often unfounded. Parents have to choose between a £7 tin of formula and a £14 tin of formula, even though they are nutritionally equivalent. At a recent event, we heard the testimony of parents who had purchased the more expensive brand with the bold claims on its packaging, believing that they were doing the best for their child, only to then use fewer scoops when making a bottle to make the tin last longer. We have only to look at our supermarket shelves and see the formula milk locked in glass cabinets to understand that we have a crisis in families being able to feed their babies.
The cost of living challenges have spiralled into a food insecurity crisis, yet formula manufacturers increased prices by 24% in one year in 2023 and prices continue to rise well beyond inflation. Research shows that parents rarely switch brands once they have introduced a formula milk. This gives formula companies a clear incentive to offer their products to maternity wards at reduced prices, knowing that parents are likely to continue using the same brand when they go home. To address this, the CMA recommends standardised infant formula labelling in healthcare settings, which would eliminate this form of exploitative marketing.
Formula companies are also restricted from advertising newborn formula, but they get round this by advertising their follow-on, or stage 2, milk and making the packaging look exactly the same. The CMA recommendations ask for the Government to assess whether infant formula and follow-on milks are “clearly distinct”, then communicate that assessment to the manufacturers and enforcers. A Mintel report from 2016 reported that in 2015, for every baby born in the UK, companies spent a staggering £21 just on marketing follow-on formula. The CMA has made 11 recommendations to the Government, all of which aim to improve outcomes for parents. I am calling on the Government today to implement all 11 recommendations and finally to level the playing field for those parents who rely on formula to feed their babies.
This debate is timely, as last week I was delighted to host the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative’s launch of its 2024 report here in Parliament. I would be delighted to give the Minister a copy if she does not already have one. The key takeaway from the report is that the UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world. The report not only highlights the gaps in policy but creates a report card system for each of the four nations. I want to highlight a few things that were mentioned in the report.
Importantly, data—though its collection is uneven across the four nations—shows that the majority of mothers do set out to breastfeed. Despite this, by six to eight weeks, around 70% of babies in the UK receive some formula, and by six months only 1% of babies are exclusively breastfed.