Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to ban fast food outlets near schools.

On 12 December 2024, the Government published the revised National Planning Policy Framework for local government. As part of this, local authorities were given the stronger, clearer powers they have told us they need to block new fast-food outlets near schools and where young people congregate, unless the location is in a designated town centre.

The framework also indicates that applications should also be refused where there is evidence that a concentration of such uses is having an adverse impact on local health, pollution or anti-social behaviour.