Food, Diet and Obesity Committee Report

Baroness Coffey Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in that I worked for Mars for 12 years and I have a pension.

I am conscious that a lot of the discussion today is about food processes, not food producers, but I have spotted that the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, is speaking later, so I expect that she may cover the issue of food production.

One thing that struck me about this report is that it seems that the only way to try to get change is through regulation, taxes and strategies. I can genuinely say that, in the three different roles that I held at Cabinet level, particularly when I was at DWP, we worked with the Department of Health and Defra on the food strategy. We worked on increasing Healthy Start, and, when people asked for it to be online, we got the applications online.

This is all about how we try to develop habits and, as has already been referred to today, starting young is a key element of that. That can be in schools, but I would go further. Thinking of what the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown said, there is a lot here for local government. That is where the health workers are and it has responsibility for planning permission, which was further strengthened last December—a key driver is not necessarily what happens at home, but what you purchase, particularly from fast food outlets. That is really where a lot of the focus should increasingly be.

To follow on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, said, I remember that, as a student, I used to go down from my halls of residence to the Berwick Street Market every Saturday at 5 am to get the cheap veg. The question is how councils can promote markets, and not just, dare I say it, the niche chichi farmers’ markets. Perhaps councils can do innovative things, such as removing business rates or similar, in order to try to get that fresh food habit as part of a regular shop, with people not just travelling to the supermarket.

One thing that the report frequently refers to is the 2021 national food strategy. I know that Henry Dimbleby was commissioned by Michael Gove to provide evidence to it. It somewhat mushroomed and went way beyond its remit and people referred to it as the “national food strategy”. I should point out that it was never adopted by the Government. However, it brought out a lot of important issues—I appreciate that Henry is not only charming but indeed passionate about this particular interest—that built on the work he had done in improving school meal standards and his other work. A strategy was produced in June 2022 and is now to be updated.

In thinking about processes, one thing your Lordships may not be aware of is the relationships that were forged, particularly during Covid, with the Food Resilience Industry Forum. Frankly, it was the partnership between government and the food processors that are being maligned that kept food on the shelves, so that people could get fed during the challenges that were faced at that time and to some extent during Ukraine a little bit later. Fast-forwarding somewhat and thinking about UPF and science, I would recommend that your Lordships read Dr Amati’s article in the Times today, which talks about this issue and the challenge of how, to be candid, the Nova classification is not just in the balance like the committee has suggested but has been discredited as being ineffective in its classifications. The Nova classification gave a starting point, which was a good thing, but it needs to evolve. That is why the important work still needs to continue. If more research could be done towards that, it would be a welcome move by the Government.

In thinking about the needs of families, we have to remember the cost of living challenge that people face. When food inflation was rising, we had food companies admitting in private that their policies of pursuing net zero by 2030 were increasing the cost of food for families right across the country. When we challenged them about changing that while we had the national emergency, the answer was, quite simply, no. That was a concern to me, but I appreciated that trying to legislate to change that, or creating some new strategy, would simply just add to a very long list. As a consequence, going into the Department of Health as I did, I was accused of all sorts of things at the time, despite the fact that we had a series of strategies. We sat down, looked at the impact assessments for all the different bits of legislation and tried to prioritise those that would make the most difference. That is why banning buy one, get one free during a cost of living crisis was not necessary, especially when the marginal impact was so low. I hope that the updated food strategy that we will see later this year will have a systemic approach to achieving the outcomes that noble Lords seem to be seeking.

I agree with the committee on one specific recommendation: getting the Food Data Transparency Partnership to complete its work. It is one of the best things I set up when in government. It is done on a basis of trust, but it should not be delayed. I encourage the Minister to work with her colleagues to make sure that goes through.

I speak as somebody who is super-obese. Noble Lords may not believe this, but about 20 years ago, I lost 8 stone. I did that by not eating or drinking alcohol—that was pretty much it. I cannot pretend that it has stayed off—far from it. It is not a lack of desire and, as I said to the health officials when I went in, I am a classic example of failure. What has gone wrong? It was not the nutritionist who advised me to eat more carbohydrates. What was it? This is still a journey and there are many good recommendations, but I encourage the Government to focus on delivery and not on more strategies and laws that distract from getting the job done.