Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve food labelling to assist diabetes sufferers.

The nutrients that can be declared on pre-packed food are defined by law. Under current legislation, companies already providing nutrition information on a voluntary basis are required to declare carbohydrate value. From December 2016, the majority of pre-packaged foods will be required to carry nutrition information, including on carbohydrate value, on the back of pack.

Additionally, the new EU Regulation No. 1169/2011 allows energy value only or energy value plus amounts of fat, saturates, sugars and salt to be voluntarily repeated on front of pack. In June 2013 we published a Government recommendation on how this information could be provided clearly and consistently. To date, companies accounting for nearly two thirds of pre-packaged food have said they will use this new scheme.