Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will publish voluntary industry guidelines on commercial infant and baby food and drink.

The independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), for their report on Feeding Young Children aged 1 to 5 years, published in July 2023, recommended that foods, including snacks that are high in salt, free sugars, saturated fat, or are energy dense, should be limited in the diets of children aged one to five years  old and that commercially manufactured foods and drinks marketed specifically for infants and young children are not needed to meet nutrition requirements. 

We face a childhood obesity crisis and the Government is committed to raising the healthiest next generation. Under our health mission and shift to prevention we are considering what action is needed to respond to the SACN commercial baby food recommendations to establish healthy habits as early as possible.