Flour Milling Sector

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2026 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the economic impact of the UK flour milling sector.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, it is usual for our one-off debates to highlight a problem or defect that requires attention. That is not the case with this issue. I simply want to celebrate a small, specialist, highly productive sector of the economy, namely the flour milling sector. I have a minor technical interest, which I will come to in a moment.

The UK is self-sufficient in flour. More than 99% of households use food products that contain wheat flour, which is more than use toothpaste, by the way. Flour provides the biggest intake of iron in the diet, more than red meat. Since World War II, flour in this country has been fortified by law on health grounds with iron, calcium, niacin and thiamine. This is checked about once every 10 years to make sure it is still needed on health grounds. I should declare that the current regulations, the Bread and Flour Regulations 1998, have my signature on them as the English Minister at the time—there were four Ministers, as it is a devolved area. Food is devolved, but the industry is UK-wide due to the location of the mills—for example, there are none in Wales—so you cannot ask questions about the UK. I have therefore gone to the UK Flour Millers.

From 2013, when I left the Food Standards Agency, until last year, I campaigned for the addition of folic acid to flour on health grounds. It had been recommended by scientists for many years. The Medical Research Council report of 1991 found that a lack of folic acid was the prime cause of neural tube defects leading to brain and spine defects in newborn babies. The new Government in 2024 adopted the plan announced by the previous Government to change the regulations and in November 2024, they did so to add folic acid to the other four fortifications. So effective from 9 January 2025, the industry has two years to fortify wheat flour with folic acid to the level set in the regulations. The UK will then join more than 80 countries in fortifying flour with folic acid on health grounds, following UK research. As usual, the UK is late to the table. We did the research, published it in 1991 and the world followed it, but we did not.

A report on the flour milling industry by Policy Points in 2024 stated that 9,000 people are directly and indirectly employed in it, the annual turnover is £2 billion and the added value to the economy £700 million. The gross added value per employee is £141,000, which is greater than all other sectors, except finance and insurance. It is greater than real estate, manufacturing or construction, for example. Millers buy more than £800 million-worth of milling wheat from UK farmers. There has been capital investment of more than £250 million in the past decade. Bakers use flour for the obvious things, such as bread, cakes and biscuits. Some 12 million loaves, 10 million cakes and 2 million pizzas are made every day.

Flour milling supports food security. In a normal year for weather—a bit tricky these days, of course—that gives an average harvest, more than 80% of the wheat that millers use, or 3.8 million tonnes, was bought from UK farmers. It is not simple: there are over 40 variations of milling specification wheats to grow. Continuous testing and traceability are the norm in this industry. The sector also has zero waste. For every 100 tonnes of wheat, we get 75 to 78 tonnes of flour and 22 tonnes of by-products for animal feed. Flour millers are a cornerstone of national food security, providing an essential ingredient to UK food manufacturers; the wheat goes into a lot more than just making bread. In short, flour milling is one of the most productive sectors of the economy. It is a fairly small sector, but I am not arguing about its size. That is not the point; I just want to celebrate a small sector of the economy.

Last June, I had an update from UK Flour Millers, the trade body that knows what happens UK-wide. It confirmed to me this week that 85% to 90% of UK flour is now fortified with folic acid. This is a year in advance of the requirement by law; an excellent amount of work has been done. However—this is my bit of a moan, in a way, but I want to put it on the record—the Department of Health needs to accept that key scientists do not believe that the level of fortification is as high as it should be. The neural tube, which forms the spine and the brain, closes at 27 days after conception, before many women know that they are pregnant. For this reason, the advice to women planning a pregnancy is to take folic supplements; in fact that advice continues, even with the new regs.

The fact of the matter, though, is that the advice to take supplements has been a spectacular policy failure—otherwise, we would not have gone for fortification of our flour. Half of our pregnancies are unplanned, so it is no good talking to the half of the population who are not affected. We have a new fortification policy because the previous policy failed. That is a good thing. We have gone modern, which will save some distress.

Over the years—I was a scientist as well as a parliamentarian—my role has been exclusively to try to get the regs changed, after I became convinced that was required when I was at the Food Standards Agency, and previously at MAFF, but I have never got involved in the level of fortification. I do not intend to do so now, but scientists such as Sir Nicholas Wald, who is currently an honorary professor of preventive medicine at UCL and was the leader of the Medical Research Council’s 1991 study, wish that the level were higher. Others, such as Dr Jonathan Sher, who is a former deputy director of the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland, have called for “full fortification”.

We commend UK Flour Millers on its speedy action on fortification. It has done a fantastic job, showing what a well-run and well-managed industry this is. However, it would be useful if the Minister could confirm the monitoring process for the new fortification regs. I have never heard a Minister make a speech on health prevention that includes this area of policy; that applies to both parties, by the way. Nobody speaks about preventive health as a major policy issue and, if it has been touched, this issue has never been raised.

Currently, on average, 200 babies are born per annum with long-term disability due to neural tube defects and 800 pregnancies are terminated at the 20-week scan, so about 1,000 pregnancies are involved. Over the years, Ministers have told me, “Jeff, the numbers are so low that we’re not going to bother to do any work on it”, but think of those 200 babies. Over 10 years, that is 2,000 babies with lifelong disabilities—and because of the American medical system, we know what the cost is. We do not do costing like the Americans, but we know that they have saved $600 million a year since they fortified in 1998. So there are some big figures to save, besides lessening the distress of those families who have gone through terminations and those who have allowed births to continue.

Full fortification could cut these figures by 80%. The current level will not cut it that much, but it has to be monitored. Once we know the fortification is in, I expect the monitoring system to check the policy effects. The regulations talk about the monitoring system, and that is important.

Finally, I have one question I should like to put on the record because it is nothing to do with this. I was contacted by the Nature Friendly Farming Network as a result of the debate. It asked whether anybody is looking at the possibility of a technical change to growing wheat to make it even more productive. I understand that if the protein requirement was reduced even from 13% to 12.5% without affecting the benefits, it would make a tremendous difference to the amount of nitrogen that enters the soil.

I congratulate the industry, which has done a fantastic job and will have saved distress in the health field for many years to come. I wanted to celebrate its success, and that is why I have this debate today.