Infant Formula Regulations
Chris Webb Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I am grateful to have secured my first Adjournment debate on an issue that affects so many families in my constituency and across the country: the cost of infant formula and the regulations that govern its sale.
The infant formula market is rightly highly regulated, and should remain so. Regulations have a key role in supporting public health goals and breastfeeding. However, not all parents can or want to breastfeed, and recent stats show that 95% of babies in the UK have had some formula by the age of nine months. As the father of a nine-month-old baby, I know how emotionally charged and difficult it is to navigate infant feeding. The infancy period is crucial for a child’s development. In their first year, they will triple their birth weight, and the foundations of their health are determined for the rest of their life. It is vital that parents have access to safe and affordable food during infancy. The fact that, for too many families, that is not the reality is a public health crisis.
Recent data from YouGov shows that one in four mothers are struggling to afford formula milk. Over the past two years, the price of the cheapest brand of formula has risen by 45%, with an average price hike across all brands of 25%. Those increases are putting immense pressure on families.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for bringing forward this important debate and allowing me to intervene briefly. A recent Competition and Markets Authority report highlighted the insufficient marketing regulations in the formula industry, which enable brands to exploit vulnerable parents by presenting their products as distinct or superior, despite all formulas being required to meet the same nutritional standards, whether the box costs £7 or £14. Does he agree that an NHS-branded formula in plain packaging could be considered? It could be sold at cost price. That would give those families who choose not to, or who cannot, breastfeed confidence that their decision is best for their child, regardless of the cost.
Chris Webb
I completely agree, and I will come to that later in my speech. I look forward to working with the hon. Lady and other members of the all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding when it is established in the coming weeks.
In my constituency alone, where child poverty has increased by 30% in the past year, 12,500 children are going without enough food each day. Formula is an essential product for many, but the average tub now costs a staggering £14.50, so many parents are resorting to extreme and unsafe measures to feed their babies. A black market has sprung up for infant milk, and it is one of the most commonly shoplifted items. Rather than working to reduce its cost, some supermarkets have resorted to locking formula in cages or attaching security tags to it. Certain stores have even gone as far as to prevent customers from entering unless admitted by staff—that is happening in convenience stores across my constituency.
We are seeing something that should be unthinkable in modern Britain: formula foraging. I regularly read heartbreaking posts on local forums from parents begging for baby milk to tide them over until the next payday—they are in utter despair—but by seeking out cheap or free milk online, they risk feeding their babies a product that could be out of date or already opened and potentially laden with bacteria. Studies have shown that the inability to afford formula can lead to unsafe feeding practices such as skipping feeds, ignoring expiry dates, and over-diluting powdered formula or bulking it out using unapproved alternative foods such as porridge, all of which can harm an infant’s health.
New NHS England figures show a worrying rise in childhood malnutrition. Up to 47% of hospitalised children are at risk of undernourishment. Last year, admissions for malnutrition at Blackpool teaching hospitals had almost doubled on the previous year. Gastroenteritis has become an alarmingly common illness in infants, with many now suffering more than one episode a year. In Blackpool, hospital admissions for under-ones with gastrointestinal problems are almost triple the national average. Dehydration—a common complication of gastroenteritis—is a particularly serious risk, and it is exacerbated by parents’ inability to access or properly prepare formula. Parents should not be forced into those dangerous choices when they are simply trying to feed their babies. This scandal demands the urgent attention of the House.
Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this horrendous issue. A related issue is the broader regulation of baby foods. Many baby foods contain more sugar per 100g than Haribo sweeties, and there is no compulsory regulation of their content. Large numbers of children eat those baby foods but are still malnourished and do not get a balanced diet. Does he agree that we should consider wider regulation of, and mandatory standards for, the content of baby food, while still being mindful of the need for baby foods to be affordable so that everyone can access proper nutrition for their children? Children in the UK are becoming shorter on average than their international peers, and that is a disgrace.
Chris Webb
I agree. We know from recent studies by the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and others that this is a serious issue that must be considered urgently.
Last week, the Competition and Markets Authority published its long-awaited interim report on infant formula. The report outlines its concerns about the market, all of which appear to be contributing to parents paying over the odds.
The regulations on the advertising and labelling of infant formula are rightly designed to protect parents and encourage breastfeeding. UK law is informed by, but not identical to, the World Health Organisation’s international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes. Our regulations cover only infant formula intended for babies under six months old. That loophole in UK regulation permits hidden marketing through carelines and the widespread legal advertising of follow-on milk—an unnecessary product that does little more than promote higher sales of a brand’s infant formula. I urge the Government to consider strengthening UK regulations to close the loophole on the marketing of breast milk substitutes, in line with the WHO code.
However, strong regulation should not hinder affordable access to infant milk. Parents are worse off because the current regulations mean that food bank vouchers, loyalty points and store gift cards cannot be used to buy infant milk, and food banks are prohibited from stocking it. As a volunteer for Blackpool food bank for over seven years, I have witnessed at first hand how urgently it is needed. For too long, the third sector and charitable individuals have been desperately scrambling to fill the gap that the previous Government left wide open and allowed families to fall into. When it comes to infant formula, even that safety net has been removed. I recently met Richard Walker, the chairman of Iceland Foods, who shares my commitment to ensuring there is a fair price for formula for parents. Along with over 100,000 signatories to the Metro and Feed UK’s “Formula for Change” campaign, I support the call to allow parents to use food bank vouchers to buy infant milk.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In the last Parliament, I was a member of the APPG on infant feeding and inequalities alongside Alison Thewliss, a former Scots Nats Member. I am very pleased that this issue is being debated, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Chris Webb) on securing the debate. Does he agree that, while we can all acknowledge the well-documented benefits of breastfeeding, it simply does not work for some mothers, and sometimes the baby does not put on weight? While breast is undoubtedly best, we need to ensure that formula is available and is highly regulated, but not highly costly, in order to provide the best possible alternative. That means not pretending that formula does not exist, but doing all we can to ensure it is the best that we can offer when breastfeeding fails.
Chris Webb
I completely agree with the hon. Member. I have seen that with my own son, who would not take to breastfeeding, so we had to resort to infant formula. We need to make sure that all parents have the best product available for their children to ensure they have the healthiest start to their lives.
I ask the Government to examine the fact that food bank vouchers cannot be used to buy infant milk, to ensure the regulations do not punish the very people they are designed to protect.
The CMA report recommends potentially relaxing regulations to permit promotions and price reductions and incentivise competition. However, although discounts would benefit parents in the short term, there needs to be a sustainable solution to permanently lower the price of formula. The infant milk market in the UK is highly concentrated, with just three manufacturers accounting for over 90% of supply. Formula manufacturers have blamed rising costs, but profit margins have inflated beyond them. Those firms pass responsibility to the retailers, who they say ultimately set prices. This is not just passing the buck, but taking it from the pockets of struggling parents to line those of monopolistic multinational conglomerates whose combined annual profits are £15 billion.
Retailers do have their part to play, though. They must do their bit to protect families by capping their prices in line with the CMA report’s recommendations. In the coming weeks, I will meet with three major supermarkets to encourage them to cap prices and follow the lead of Aldi and Lidl in developing a reasonably priced own-brand infant formula. The cost to parents of buying the most expensive brand can add up to £1,000 a year—more than twice as much as using an own-brand infant formula. That is despite the fact that strict regulations ensure that these products are nutritionally equivalent.
Parents naturally want to do the best for their baby, and decisions about feeding are inevitably made at a time when mothers and fathers are at their most vulnerable. The CMA report points out that this can lead to them actively choosing a more expensive product, assuming incorrectly that a higher price means better quality. That assumption is not based on price tag alone, but on decades of brand-building by manufacturers trying to claim the superiority of their products. The important public health message that all infant formula meets a baby’s nutritional needs must be more effectively communicated. The Government must also consider the CMA’s recommendation that they procure infant formula themselves, providing it to parents at a lower price point while putting downward pressure on other manufacturers’ prices.
Prices remain unjustifiably high, but Iceland’s leadership in this campaign has led to a welcome reduction in prices across the sector. Since February, there has been a positive shift, and there are now three formula products available in supermarkets that are affordable with the Government’s weekly Healthy Start vouchers, but those supermarkets are not accessible to everyone. Blackpool has the fourth highest uptake of the Healthy Start scheme, but around 150,000 families nationally who are entitled to access it still do not. There is a clear need for us to ensure that all those who are entitled to Healthy Start vouchers access them, while simultaneously increasing their value from £8.50.
This is a matter of huge importance, and I am pleased to have been given the opportunity to raise it in the House. I urge the Government to consider my points and to work with me and stakeholders to ensure that accessibility and affordability are at the heart of the Government’s policy on infant formula. We must examine the comprehensive recommendations in the CMA’s report and the views of those in public health and the third sector, who understand the urgency of this debate. I invite Ministers to consider the voices of parents in Blackpool, who are at the sharp end of this price crisis, but who are brilliantly supported by our local infant feeding support team.
Raising a child is one of the most challenging and demanding things we will do in our adult lives. The Government’s policy must lighten the load on parents to ensure that it can be one of the most rewarding things we do. We must ensure that every child in this country has a healthy start to life; we cannot allow children in constituencies such as mine to be failed before they have even taken their first step.
Access to Primary Healthcare
Chris Webb Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)
At 10 years below the average for England, life expectancy in my constituency is the lowest in the country for men and women. Lord Darzi’s recent report pointed out that people in the most deprived areas of England are twice as likely to wait more than a year for non-urgent treatment. Those problems are compounded by poor-quality housing, low income and insecure employment, which are particularly pronounced in my constituency. That is evident in the casework that my constituency office receives. One man, whose son got in touch with me recently, has been waiting years for a simple hernia operation, and it has impacted on his mental health. It has led to the son fearing that his father could take his own life.
Physical health inequalities contribute to poor mental health and the crisis surrounding it. Chris Whitty’s 2021 report on health in coastal communities detailed the alarming rates of diagnosed severe mental illness in my home town of Blackpool. There were over 500 hospital admissions for intentional self-harm in 2018-19, suicide rates among men were the second highest in the country, and 3,000 people have a severe mental illness.
I recently had the opportunity to meet staff and patients at the Harbour in Blackpool, a modern mental health hospital with fantastic facilities. However, the 154-bed facility is hugely oversubscribed, and patients are routinely sent hundreds of miles away to receive hospital treatment, putting undue pressure and stress on their families. The lack of mental health beds has a knock-on effect on Blackpool Victoria hospital, where the 60-person A&E facility has held up to 188 patients—waiting, at one time, 50 hours to be seen. Those waiting times have been normalised, but they can mean the difference between life and death. The number of hospital admissions for children with mental health problems in my constituency is around 60% higher than the national average.
I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to consider the model of mental health support championed by charities in my constituency such as Counselling in the Community, an award-winning mental health charity led by its incredible founder and chief executive officer Stuart Hutton-Brown. It uses the skills of trainee counsellors, giving them invaluable career experience while acting as a lifeline for its service users. Empowering such charities to expand their work, rather than relying on the private sector to plug the gap in the NHS, is a great model that will enable us to put money back into the community rather than into the pockets of private providers, and offers better value for money.
Those problems are distilled in Blackpool. I am encouraged by the Government’s recognition of the challenges—I know that the Minister’s Department is prepared to face up to them—but sadly, in Blackpool, they are all too apparent.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Webb Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)
The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)
Our mental health service is on its knees, thanks to 14 years of Tory neglect and mismanagement. A staggering 1 million people are waiting to access mental health services, and vacancy rates are around 10%, the highest across the NHS. This Government are committed to fixing our broken NHS so that people can be confident of accessing high-quality mental health support when needed. That includes recruiting 8,500 more mental health workers, introducing specialist mental health professionals in every school, rolling out Young Futures hubs in every community and modernising the Mental Health Act.
Stephen Kinnock
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is doing excellent work for the people of North Durham. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank our mental health nurses, who do such vital and valuable work. The Government are committed to shifting from hospital to community, and that of course includes the mental health sector. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are working with NHS England on how best to deploy those additional 8,500 mental health workers.
Chris Webb
I wish to pay my respects to the family of Jamie Pearson, the 27-year-old Blackpool man who sadly took his own life in a local hospital in August after waiting nearly 24 hours to see a mental health worker in A&E. Jamie was in a mental health crisis, but got himself to what should have been a place of safety. What steps is the Minister’s Department taking to ensure that no one is left to suffer in A&E because they cannot access mental health treatment in their community, and will he meet me to discuss that tragic issue, so that we can make sure that it never happens again?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that deeply tragic case. Words cannot express the heartbreak caused to Jamie Pearson’s friends and family. I hope it might be some small comfort to them to know that all acute hospitals should now have a 24/7 mental health liaison service in A&E, and we are looking at how best to take forward the Government’s suicide prevention strategy for England. We will do everything in our power to ensure that the tragic circumstances of Jamie’s untimely death are addressed, and that lessons are learned. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that further.