Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that public health objectives do not adversely impact the agriculture and food producer sector, in the context of proposed changes to the Nutrient Profiling Model.

The Government has committed to updating the standards behind the advertising and promotions restrictions on ‘less healthy’ food and drink and we are consulting on proposals for applying the new Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM) to these policies.

The NPM is used as part of a two-step process to determine ‘less healthy’ food or drink products in scope of the advertising and promotions restrictions. Products must first fall within one of the product categories in the legislation and second, score four or above for food, or one or above for drink in an NPM assessment. Fruit juices without added sugar are not in scope of our current promotions and advertising restrictions.

Our consultation seeks feedback on the impact and challenges associated with the proposal for industry and enforcement authorities and gathers views on what further support is needed to help adapt to the requirements of the new NPM. A consultation-stage impact assessment, setting out the direct costs to businesses for the proposed application of the new NPM to these restrictions, was published alongside the consultation.

We will use evidence from the consultation to inform the final impact assessment and welcome views from the fruit juice, agriculture, and food producer sectors. Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the final impact assessment would be published ahead of any changes being made.

Detailed impact assessments for the current advertising and promotions restrictions, which set out the costs to industry, can also be found on the GOV.UK website. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the restrictions and will publish a Post Implementation Review within five years of the restrictions taking legal effect.