Children’s Health: Sugar

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct; that has been a success story. Overall, we have seen a 46% reduction of sugar, while at the same time sales of drinks in that category have gone up by 21%—that is 60%-plus if you combine the two. We are now looking at other moves that can help. The movement of product positioning to remove the so-called “pester power” is a key step forward in this. Of all the modelling that has been done, that is the thing that it is thought will reduce calories by the most—by 96%. That is the current focus; it has been in place for almost a year and early evidence is that it is working, but as ever we must keep everything under review.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, for the 4 million children in food poverty, the quality of their school lunch is crucial to their health and development. But the school food standard has not been reviewed since 2014, and nobody checks whether schools are adhering to it anyway. With so many children going hungry, is it not time that the standard of school food was brought up to date with the latest research on the impact of sugar and other nutrients?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct. What we give children in schools is a key thing that the Government can affect. That is why I am delighted that the level of free school meals, at 33%, is the highest on record, making sure that they have good nutritious food. But the noble Baroness is correct: there was a review taking place in 2019, which was one of the casualties of Covid. I know that it is now one of the things that we are thinking, as we recover from Covid, that we need to look at again.