Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the Food Data Transparency Partnership’s decision not to make reporting on health data mandatory, what steps they are taking to ensure enforcement of and consistency in the voluntary scheme.

The Food Data Transparency Partnership’s (FDTP) Health Working Group (HWG) has been testing the effectiveness and quality of potential standardised metrics that food and drink companies can use to report on the healthiness of their sales. This is an important part of government’s strategy to address poor diet and reduce obesity and was restated in the Major Conditions Strategy interim report August 2023.

Once a recommended set of metrics and reporting guidance has been produced and approved by Ministers, the expectation is that businesses who voluntarily report will all follow this standardised approach.

A key commitment of the HWG is timely and transparent communication so that wider food sector stakeholders can input into each stage of the process in order to ensure recommendations around comparability and enforcement will be as viable and effective as possible. Alongside engagement with industry, the FDTP also regularly engages civil society organisations and investor groups to gather and integrate wider feedback into discussions. Summaries of these HWG discussions are published online on the FDTP GOV.UK page.