PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Food: Advertising (7 October 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has had recent discussions with relevant stakeholders on the potential merits of regulating the outdoor advertising of high fat, salt and sugar products.

Asked by:
Jim Dickson (Labour)

Departmental officials engage with a range of external stakeholders on diet and obesity policies. Supporting people to stay healthier for longer is at the heart of the Government’s Health Mission which aims to reduce the amount of time spent in ill health, tackle health inequalities and drive economic growth. This includes taking bold action to tackle the childhood obesity crisis and create the healthiest generation of children ever.

The Government welcomes recent action at local level to ban junk food marketing across the public transport networks and public spaces that are controlled locally.

Whilst no assessment has been made on the potential impact of outdoor advertising of less healthy food and drink products on children's consumption of those products, the Government has committed to implementing the advertising restrictions set out in the Communications Act 2003 on less healthy food and drink products without further delay. The regulations introduce a 9pm watershed for the advertisement of less healthy food or drink products on television and a total restriction of paid-for advertising of these products online will come into force across the United Kingdom on 1 October 2025.

Evidence shows that these restrictions will have a direct impact on childhood obesity by reducing children’s exposure to advertising of less healthy products. We estimate that these restrictions will remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the UK and reduce the number of children living with obesity by 20,000.

Answered by:
Andrew Gwynne (Labour)
15 October 2024