Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Written Statement UIN HCWS652 of 22 May 2025, what his planned timeline is for regulations on the advertising of HFSS food and drink products.

The Government is committed to implementing advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online, as part of its ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever.

As announced in our Written Ministerial Statement on 22 May, we are working with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to bring forward a statutory instrument (SI) that will provide an explicit exemption for ‘brand advertising’ from the advertising restrictions. This will provide legal clarification on this aspect of the existing policy, which we consulted upon and which was understood and agreed by Parliament during the passage of the Health and Care Bill. We will consult on the draft regulations before they can be finalised and laid before Parliament, which we aim to do as soon as possible. We have amended the coming into force date for the advertising restrictions from 1 October 2025 to 5 January 2026, to allow for this and for the Advertising Standards Authority to publish implementation guidance on how the restrictions will be enforced. However, industry stakeholders have complied with the restrictions voluntarily, as though they will still come into force from 1 October 2025.

The Government appointed Ofcom as the statutory regulator for the advertising restrictions. Ofcom has appointed the Advertising Standards Authority as the frontline regulator to carry out the day-to-day enforcement following consultation.