Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of introducing regulations on the advertising of products high in fat, sugar or salt (a) in outdoor spaces and (b) on audio-only media on public health.

The Government is taking bold action to tackle the childhood obesity crisis, and will create the healthiest generation of children ever. We are progressing with the implementation of the advertising restrictions for less healthy food or drink products on television and online. This includes a 9:00pm watershed on television and a 24-hour restriction on paid-for advertising of these products online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year and reduce the number of children living with obesity by 20,000.

An assessment has not been made on the potential impact of introducing regulations on the advertising of products high in fat, sugar, or salt in outdoor spaces or on audio-only media on public health. Audio-only media, for instance podcasts or online radio, are exempt from the advertising restrictions due to limited evidence about the child audience for these services and the effect they have on children’s food consumption.

We continue to review evidence of the impacts on children of advertising for less healthy food and drink products and will consider where further action is needed.