Food, Diet and Obesity Committee Report

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe. Like him, I pay tribute to our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley; she has been such an excellent chair of a committee that was both very interesting and very worrying to serve on.

Our committee covers food, diet and obesity, but today I will mainly focus on food, and food insecurity in particular. We know that food insecurity is really about the affordability and accessibility of food; if that is not present, it is the driver of unhealthy diets. I want to talk about our relationship as human beings with food. I am not talking about packets, tins, what comes out the freezer and cooking it; it is about eating and handling food, and it is sometimes about growing and shopping for food. It is part of the human condition—and I am talking here about real food.

Chapter 7 of our report says:

“Food insecurity is an urgent problem”.


Of course, the poorer people are, the more that adds to this urgency. In the Government’s response to our report, particularly to chapter 7, they talk about the strategy that has already been mentioned today. Page 5 states:

“In alignment with the health mission, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs … is developing an ambitious food strategy that will set the food system up for long-term success and will provide wide ranging improvements. The food strategy will help to improve our food system so it … provides healthier, more easily accessible food to tackle obesity and give children the best start in life, and help adults live longer healthier lives, building on the government’s existing work to tackle obesity and improve health”.


Today, I would like to hear more about this strategy from the Minister. We have heard that the advisory board is in place. I would like to know a lot more about what its terms of reference are and how the Government will make sure that what they have asked the board to do is what comes out at the other end. It must be cross-departmental—because this whole subject involves more than just one department—but led by Defra.

Now that the board is in place, the Government should know by now whether the strategy’s work will encourage more food to be grown and produced in the UK. Will it look at that? Is that one of the objectives of the strategy? I say that not out of some quirky, old-fashioned nationalism, but as a former Agriculture Minister, and somebody who represented a truly agricultural seat for 18 years, and as a former home economist who has taught many people, including adults, to cook. Will we have the availability of the ingredients and products from which we would all benefit if they were grown closer to home rather than on the other side of the world?

Will this strategy encourage both children and adult communities to grow the food they eat? Will allotments, for example, be protected from land to build on? If this is cross-departmental, are we actually going to start engaging the public with the very food they need throughout the course of their lives? We know that many schools, for example, support gardening and growing things, which help to introduce children in a most positive way to food that will be part of their lives. Will this strategy improve the population’s understanding of basic nutrients in food so that people know what to look for when they are shopping? Will they understand the labelling? All these things are small in their way, but they contribute to the way in which people address and see the food that appears in their kitchens.

I am sure the Minister will not be surprised to hear me ask this: is the teaching of cookery going to be improved in schools? In a former existence—as the president of the Institute of Home Economics—I campaigned very hard for many years with Governments of all persuasions to encourage this basic science in schools. It is a science and it is so essential. Will the strategy mean that from childhood to adulthood the population’s relationship with food improves to the extent that it once again becomes an essential life skill that is enjoyable, healthy and accessible? If the Minister cannot say exactly what she thinks will come out at the end of this strategy, can she at least share the timescale with us? The word “soon” was used in the Government’s January response to our report. How soon is “soon”? How will the strategy be monitored? Who will do this? Will any legislation needed at the outturn be given priority for parliamentary time? There are recommendations for legislation in our report, but if a recommendation for legislation comes from the strategy, will that be given priority?

I wish the Minister well with this, and I know she will be listening to what we have to say today.