Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the report by the Food Foundation entitled Broken Plate Report 2023, published on 27 June 2023; and what steps he is taking to tackle misleading health claims on baby and infant food.

We face a childhood obesity crisis, and the Government is committed to raising the healthiest next generation ever. It is vital that we maintain the highest standards for foods consumed by babies and young children and ensure that claims made about infant food or drink are accurate and not misleading. This will help to better support parents and carers to make the best choices for feeding their young children.

The independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), for their 2023 report Feeding Young Children aged 1-5 years, 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.

This is why baby and infant foods are already subject to robust regulations which set nutrition and composition standards through the Processed Cereal-based Foods and Baby Foods for Infants and Young Children (England) Regulations 2003 and its parent Regulation (EU) No 609/2013 on food for specific groups.

Under our health mission and shift to prevention we are considering what further action is needed to respond to the SACN’s commercial baby food recommendations, in order to establish healthy habits as early as possible. We will continue to keep these regulations under review to ensure they reflect the latest scientific and dietary guidelines.