(LD): My Lords, the
Minister has told us previously that the Government are going
slow on their ban on junk food advertising because they want to
give time to manufacturers to reformulate their products. For
many of us, this is disappointing because, as long as the food
continues to be advertised, there will be excessive consumption.
Could the Minister give us a progress update, so that we can get
to the point where these foods, which are bad for health, will no
longer be promoted—particularly in front of children?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health
and Social Care () (Con): Yes, as I
mentioned previously, our modelling shows that roughly 95% of the
calorific reduction that we are expecting will come from the
movement of the product positioning. The evidence, almost at the
end of the first year, is that this is working. Effectively, the
category of non-high HFSS products has gone up by about 16% while
products high in fat, sugar and salt have gone down. We know that
supermarkets are
taking the lead in doing this voluntarily, in terms of the
so-called BOGOF, or “buy one get one free”, promotions.
Tesco and Sainsbury’s have already stopped that
on a voluntary basis and, as I mentioned earlier, the companies
are also reformulating their foods. There is a lot of progress in
a lot of areas.
For context, OPEN HERE
