Food, Diet and Obesity Committee Report

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie. I agree with every word that she said. I too had the great pleasure of being on the committee that was expertly chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. It genuinely felt like being on a jury, with 12 members, evidence being shown and someone taking evidence and notes, which our clerks did superbly. At the end of it, I think we were all informed and pretty much facing the same direction. Our verdict was straightforward.

I will use my few minutes to talk about one of our recommendations—the extent to which the food industry is involved in the policy of food at the moment. Take, for instance, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition—SACN. It is the main adviser to the Government on food policy and, if you think it is unbiased, you would be wrong. Of the 16 members of SACN, 14 of them directly or indirectly take money from the food industry. They might brush it aside by saying, “I declare my interests”, but, if you take money, it changes minds.

SACN’s statement on ultra-processed food concluded that the associations between higher UPF consumption and adverse health outcomes was “concerning”. It is well known that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and I argued a bit about this in the committee. However, the noble Lord is highly respected, so I urge him to look at the overwhelming weight of evidence and stop quibbling at the edges about whether this is HFSS or UPF. The overwhelming body of evidence is that what we and our children are eating is bad for us and is making us fat and ill. We should all combine forces to understand that simple fact and park the quarrels.

Food policy must always be made without the industry being in the room, because we have two different aims. They want to make money; we want to make people well. It is very interesting to note that when George Osborne imposed the sugar tax, he made it completely on his own—not literally but with an incredibly tight, tiny team of civil servants and advisers. He then went out and told the industry, which got on with it.

Like many others, I have been interested this week to see the announcement of the newly created advisory board. There are 16 members and seven represent one or other face of big food. The press release states that this board will help to set the ambition, but the ambition of McCain Foods is to sell a lot more chips. Indeed, one of the shocking things that we heard on our committee came from one of the young people on Bite Back: when he buys a bus ticket to get to school, on the reverse of the ticket it offers free chips if he comes into McDonald’s with it.

Therefore, I cannot believe that McCain Foods is really after our help. Yes, it has some sterling people: Anna Taylor, who is CEO of the Food Foundation; Susan Jebb; Professor Chris Whitty; and Ravi Gurumurthy from Nesta. I am glad that they are there, but can they hold the line against the lobbying might of Greencore, Sofina Foods, Kerry Group, McCain Foods, Sainsbury’s, Cranswick, Bidcorp Group? A line on Bidcorp Group’s website says that:

“Bidfood has identified many opportunities for value-add light processing and bespoke manufacture to make our customers’ lives easier”.


Is that what we want in our food strategy? Of course, we must wait and see, but the industry must not be allowed to health-wash itself by sitting alongside people such as Anna.

Alongside the board, we have the Food and Drink Federation, which plays a very shadowy role within this setup. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and I—who tabled the Motion for this committee and were so pleased when we got it and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—went to a meeting where the Food and Drink Federation unveiled its new strategy. I do know how much this will be involved in the food strategy, but its idea was that all healthy foods across the country should have a new label: “Feel Better”. This could be plastered on to every packet of salad, brown rice or unprocessed meat. The British public would then happily change their ways. It would be a real win for the industry, because it would not have to label anything that is not quite so good. The federation is a famed lobbyist for big food and I think it offered to come before our committee.

However, it is worth the Food and Drink Federation and us noting that investors have a duty to cut the systemic risks in their systems. Yesterday I was talking to Sophie Lawrence of Greenbank. She told me that the Investor Coalition on Food Policy is calling for greater transparency around lobbying activities by the food industry. She said that during the previous Government, from January 2022 to June 2024, Ministers at Defra met with food businesses and their trade associations 1,408 times. That is 40 times more than they met with the food NGOs and people such as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who might want to put the results of her report before them.

The food strategy is coming and we look forward to it, but what was wrong with the strategy that Henry Dimbleby wrote? It seemed an excellent strategy. When it was published, the Government only committed to doing four of its 14 recommendations, which have been delayed and forgotten. As all noble Lords have said, the response to our report has been equally weak.

I also recommend that when the Minister steps forward to help with food strategy, she spends some time talking to the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, which is setting up citizens’ juries. There is no point in food policy being made if it does not change how things happen on the street. Wherever you live, however much you earn, whether you are disabled or not, you want to be able to walk to a shop that provides healthy, affordable food for you and your family. If you end up in a food desert, that will not work. People want this to happen. All the polling shows that people really care. They are heartbroken by the quality of some school meals and driven to despair by the endless adverts.

Health: Obesity

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the obstacles presented by industry to delivering policies to prevent obesity, and what steps they plan to avoid such obstacles.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, we will make the shift from sickness to prevention to tackle the obesity crisis, working with industry where necessary and finding the most effective approach between mandatory and voluntary action. Since July, we have implemented our manifesto commitment to limit advertising of junk food to children, uprated the soft drinks industry levy and given councils clearer powers to block fast food outlets near schools, and we will continue this momentum.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, and it is great to hear the steps that the Government are taking, but when we held our recent inquiry into ultra-processed food, we found a considerable conflict of interest. Although this is a legal and declared conflict of interest, it happens between the scientists advising the Government on food policy and the food industry. As we and, indeed, The BMJ magazine, revealed, the majority of the members of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition are either directly or indirectly in receipt of food industry money. Given that obesity rates continue to rise and, on the whole, government policies have either failed or been abandoned—there have been over 700 of them—do the Government think it is now time to insist that bodies such as SACN have no declared or otherwise financial links to food companies, which, after all, are the only ones to profit from the obesity epidemic?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Baroness refers to the report of the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee. I am grateful to her and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for chairing that committee and for the report. We are looking forward to responding by the end of this month. On the very specific question, I will look into the matter that she raised. I emphasise that our work with industry is to seek the most effective way forward between mandatory and voluntary action. What matters to us is successful outcomes in tackling what we regard to be an obesity crisis in this country.

Food and Drink Industry: Processed Sugar

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes some very good points. I can give the assurance that all sweeteners have undergone a rigorous safety assessment before being authorised for use. It is also worth drawing the attention of your Lordships’ House to the fact that the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition is currently considering the recent World Health Organization guideline, Use of Non-sugar Sweeteners, which has particularly suggested that achieving weight control may not necessarily be about replacing sugar with sweeteners. It is about acknowledging that sweeteners are more difficult—to use a non-technical term—to use in the reformulation of food than they are in drinks. There has been success in drinks, which has not been exactly mirrored in food, but there are technical and practical reasons for that.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, we all welcome the Government’s introduction of free breakfasts. However, at the moment, about 26% of kids are going into school obese and 46% are leaving school obese, so the question of what they eat in school is critical. At the moment, there seem to be no standards. Many of the breakfasts given are bagels and sugary cereals; they do not have fruit, porridge or vegetables. When is there going to be a standard, and what is it going to be?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

It is right that what children are given to eat in schools is absolutely crucial. The school food standards are in place, and they are meant to regulate and restrict food and drink that is provided in schools. It is important, and will be part of our move, following on from the Darzi review, towards the 10-year plan, to look at the quality of free school meals and ensure that they meet the requirements to support children and young people to eat healthily, not just for the immediate future but for forming good habits for the future.