Ultra-processed Food

Debate between Suzanne Webb and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Suzanne Webb]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. Again, we are having the same conversation and I hope to answer her question later in the debate.

Ultra-processed food makes up half of the total purchased dietary energy in the UK. In fact, when it comes to UK children, more than 60% of the calories consumed comes from ultra-processed foods such as frozen pizza or fizzy drinks. All that food is linked to obesity, which causes me great concern. In England, 64% of adults and 40% of 10 to 11-year-olds are either obese or overweight. Those figures are taken from the Dimbleby report. They are staggering.

Figures from 2019-20 show that 1.5 million years of healthy life are lost to diet-related illnesses every year. Tackling obesity costs the NHS about £6.5 billion a year and is the second biggest cause of cancer. To put it starkly, it is a ticking timebomb. Some might say that the ticking has stopped and the bomb has already exploded.

Some 100,000 people have a stroke each year. There are 1.3 million stroke survivors in the UK, thanks to the advances of medicine and medical interventions such as blood pressure tablets, statins and so forth. Children who have high levels of ultra-processed food consumption have been shown to have high levels of cholesterol, increased weight and tooth decay. Obesity has been brought to the fore due to covid. Living with excess weight puts people at greater risk of serious illness or death, with risks growing substantially as body mass index increases.

The cost of all that to the NHS is significant, from prescription drugs and GP and out-patient appointments to the orthopaedic impacts on limbs of weight bearing. Of course, the greatest impact is on NHS hospital admissions. Tackling obesity is one of the greatest long-term health challenges that this country faces. Ultra-processed food is one of the main routes to all obesity issues, because the food is mainly high in fat, salt and sugar. It is marketed aggressively, to the detriment of our health, feeding a growing obesity crisis and feeding our arteries full of fat.

The food supply chain endorses and promotes products that are linked to serious health outcomes, marketing products for which the motivation is profit over health. Certainly at the cheaper end of the market, ultra-processed food does not provide a fully nutritious meal. The marketing and branding of ultra-processed food is relentless. Have we ever seen a high-profile marketing campaign for anything that falls off a tree or comes out of the ground? The answer is no. Instead, we see highly aggressive campaigns selling us the dream of so-called delicious meals. In reality they are highly addictive foods and, without moderating consumption, contribute significantly to poor health outcomes.

I am slightly disappointed that the Government are not proceeding with the plan to ban two-for-one junk food deals. That plan, which has been delayed, would have prevented shops from selling food and drink high in fat, salt and sugar through multi-buy deals. However, at a time when household budgets are under continuing pressure from the global rise in food prices, it would not be right to restrict those options. The principal issue for health outcomes is not so much two-for-one deals anyway; it is the food itself, and we should not lose sight of that. Buying multi-deals does not matter; it is the product itself that matters. That is what we should focus on: trying to eliminate addictive products that are creating poor outcomes for our children.

A good step forward would be an advertising watershed—a 9 pm watershed has been mooted—that would restrict the TV advertising of foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt, not forgetting those online. Current advertising regulations do not go far enough in protecting children from a significant number of unhealthy food adverts. I think that we have all seen the continual adverts for pizzas when we watch family programmes, certainly at the weekend. Those should not be allowed. Half the time, I am moments away from going online to order a couple of those pizzas, but I don’t do that any more.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Don’t order a couple—just order one.

[Suzanne Webb]

Jim, it would be two.

Children and young people are not sufficiently protected from exposure to adverts for unhealthy products. It has been pointed out to me that Government research shows that TV and online advertising restrictions on food that is high in sugar and salt could reduce the number of children with obesity by more than 20,000. I therefore urge the Minister to look at that and bring the timeline forward. I think at the moment it is going to be 2025, but we could and must move faster. There should be a watershed for adverts for both ultra-processed food and products high in fat, sugar and salt, sooner rather than later.

A bigger light must be shone on the manipulative marketing tactics that companies use to lead us into consuming and over-consuming foods that are bad for our health. My office manager and my comms guy are advocates of disgusting microwave burgers, which further strengthens my resolve on the matter. When I first looked at the product that they are addicted to and that they shove in that microwave, I thought, “What is not to love?” It says that it is 100% beef—it tells me three times that it is 100% beef—and with that look, I was hooked. I thought, “I want one of those,” but then I read the side of the packet. It is in fact a composition of beef fat, soya protein, salt, wheat flour, stabiliser E451, dextrose, sugar, egg white powder, yeast extract, something called hydrolysed soya protein, barley malt extract and flavourings. It is 44% beef, so not quite the 100% beef that was advertised. In fact, it is a concoction of emulsifiers, preservatives, colourings and other things, which made it look like the tastiest 100% beef burger in the world. The beef was 100% beef, but it was actually only 44% of the burger itself. That is incredibly misleading. I nearly went out and bought it myself.

The obesity crisis is not helped by the overly aggressive marketing of highly addictive food. Let’s face it: if advertising did not work, companies would not do it. That is what encourages us to go out and buy such products. We saw it in the cigarette market. Changes were needed to advertising, starting way back in 1965, when the poor health outcomes from smoking were being understood. It was many years before one of the biggest health interventions, which was the ban on smoking in public places in 2007. I was one of those smokers many, many years ago. I think I gave up before it was banned in public places, but I can tell hon. Members that smoking is highly addictive, and it was sold to be highly addictive.

When I worked in logistics, the company pushed out the cigarettes into big lorries, which took them to the centres to sell. Even there, packs of 200 cigarettes were handed out to employees as an incentive at the end of the week: “Well done—they have done a great job.” People were allowed to smoke in their offices, although I believe that at the time they were not supposed to. Unhealthy food is now being peddled and pushed in a similar way. We really have to think about that. Something very akin to what happened with cigarettes is happening with ultra-processed food.

Knife Crime: West Midlands

Debate between Suzanne Webb and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of knife crime in the West Midlands.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. I want to tell you about Ryan Passey. Ryan was aged only 24 when he died from a single fatal stab wound to the heart during a night out at Chicago’s club in Stourbridge in 2017. Six months later, a jury heard Kobe Murray, who was 19 at the time, admit to stabbing an unarmed Ryan through the heart during a dancefloor brawl. This shook the community to the core. Following what is known as a perverse verdict, Kobe Murray walked free from court acquitted of both murder and manslaughter. The verdict shocked Ryan’s devasted family, his friends and the community. We can only imagine the anguish of losing a child in such a manner and the perpetrator walking free.

Knife crime has touched our community in an unimaginable way, and that was compounded by news of another shocking death—that of Cody Fisher, who was stabbed and killed in a Birmingham nightclub on Boxing day last year. A more recent death is that of Bailey Atkinson. On Sunday morning, as I was putting the finishing touches to my speech, I was shocked to hear of yet another fatal stabbing—that of Akeem Francis-Kerr in a local Walsall nightclub. I am led to believe that there was yet another yesterday, and that, last night, there was a machete attack in Walsall. These are lives needlessly lost, and the families are now in torment.

If I may, Dame Caroline, I will read a statement from the Passey family about the loss of their son to knife crime:

“Ryan was an amazing, bubbly 24-year-old who loved football, his family, friends, and life.

On the 6th of August 2017 our whole world was shattered when on a night out with his best friend, Ryan was stabbed through his heart inside a busy nightclub in Stourbridge and died shortly later at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham.

In February 2018 at Birmingham Crown Court, his killer, who admitted to stabbing Ryan, was unbelievably acquitted of both his murder and manslaughter—claiming he had acted in self-defence and accidentally stabbed Ryan. Kobe walked free from court without any punishment.

The Acquittal verdict for our family caused us double trauma. It was as though Ryan had been murdered twice.

The past 5 years continue to be traumatic for us all and we have not been able to grieve properly for Ryan. No family should have to go through what we are experiencing. We continue to suffer daily following the loss of our only child. His sudden death leaves our lives empty and always wondering, what may have been?

The impact on our lives is immeasurable.”

Dame Caroline, we can only imagine what it must feel like to have watched your child go out for a night only to be told hours later that they were never coming home. The escalating horror of knife crime is all too real, and West Midlands police recorded the highest rate of knife crime in England and Wales over the past year.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to the House. Knife crime—whether in the west midlands or across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—is incredibly destructive for families and for people. My information, which relates to Northern Ireland, is that between December 2020 and November 2021 there were 15 murders; one manslaughter; one corporate manslaughter, which included six people; 23 attempted murders; and 58 reported threats to kill involving knives or other sharp instruments. It is clear that knife crime is on the rise. Does the hon. Lady agree that that rise creates an obligation to increase minimum sentencing to ensure that those who carry a knife do so in full knowledge of the prison time they will face should they choose to use it?

[Suzanne Webb]

I am pleased to say that some of my constituents have raised two petitions on that matter, and I look forward to seeing how they are pursued through the legislative agenda.

West Midlands police recorded the highest rate of 152 offences involving a knife crime per 100,000 of the population in 2021-22, which is significant. The possession of weapons, including knives, has increased since 2012 by 496% to 7,257 incidents a year.