Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to HM Treasury's and HMRC's document entitled Strengthening the Soft Drinks Industry Levy - consultation, published on 28 April 2025, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of lowering trends in the level of sugar consumption on trends in the level of artificial sweetener consumption.

No formal assessment has been carried out by the Government to date. While businesses are required to declare the sweeteners that have been used in products in the ingredients panel on food packaging, they are not required to provide information on the amounts of sweetener that have been used. Without this information, it is not possible to undertake a robust assessment of the levels of sweeteners that are used in products or consumed or how this has changed over time.

United Kingdom legislation dictates the amount of additives, including sweeteners, that can be used and in which products, along with any specific conditions of use. Compliance is monitored by the Food Standards Agency and supported in assessing the safety of additives by the independent Committee on Toxicity.

On 2 April 2025, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) published a position statement on the World Health Organization guideline on non-sugar sweeteners. The SACN concluded that the evidence of a risk to health from consuming non-sugar sweeteners (NSS) is inconsistent. The SACN made a precautionary recommendation that intake of NSS be minimised. With greater certainty of the impact of sugars on health, the SACN recommended that “swapping sugars for NSS may help reduce sugar intake from foods and drinks (and so reduce energy intake), at least in the short term. The long-term goal is to limit both sugar and NSS intake”.

The SACN also recommended that the Government monitor the sweetener content of food and drinks, evaluate the impact of policies on intakes of sweeteners and compel industry to make publicly available data on the amounts of individual NSS within foods. The SACN also made several research recommendations including exploration of innovative ways to reliably monitor exposure to NSS.