What’s on the food to-do list for the new Labour government?

The people have spoken. Last week’s landslide election win for Labour means the UK has a new government – and it comes with new ideas on several food-related issues.

In the new PM’s first speech after appointing his cabinet on 6 July, Keir Starmer promised his team would “not just govern”, but also “change the country and deliver”.

And with a majority of 172, Starmer stressed he now had a “mandate to do politics differently”.

But despite the optimism following its big win, Labour is coming into power at a time of crisis for many parts of the food sector.

So, what has the new government said already and what does it need to do next?

Alongside pledges to reform business rates, commitments on the living wage and a promise to create a new offence for assaults on shopworkers, Labour’s election manifesto stated it “recognises that food security is national security”.

But short of a pledge to “champion British farming whilst protecting the environment”, its pitch by the likes of the NFU came under fire for its lack of detail.

Call for concrete food policy

One of Labour’s key challenges would now be to deliver on that national security pledge and fast, said former NFU president (and new life peer) Minette Batters.

“It needs to work fast,” she told The Grocer. “There’s lots to do in terms of changing a trajectory that has been more about the environment and less about food production – it needs to be about both.”

In a social media post on Monday, new Defra secretary Steve Reed laid out five key priorities for his department: to clean up rivers, lakes and seas; move to a zero waste economy; boost food security; ensure nature’s recovery and protect communities from flooding.

Reed, plus new farming minister Daniel Zeichner, then met with current NFU president Tom Bradshaw later that day, and reiterated Labour’s opposition pledge to “offer a new deal for farmers to boost rural economic growth and strengthen Britain’s food security”.

Central to this was cutting energy bills via the new GB Energy body, raising public procurement of British food “and protecting farmers from being undercut in trade deals”, Reed said – in variations of Labour’s manifesto pledges – without offering any further detail.

But following his meeting with the new ministers, Bradshaw told The Grocer he was heartened by the new regime’s approach, including the continuation of the Conservatives’ recent focus on food security.

“He sees farmers as running rural businesses that are a critical part of delivering economic growth,” Bradshaw said.

“That’s really positive for us. If they view us as part of the economic powerhouse, that of generating for our rural communities, then that becomes really significant and something that we can work with them on,” he added. 

Reed also discussed planning policy “and how that’s been a blocker rather than an enabler”. Labour “really wants to look at how they can get the planning system working”, Bradshaw added, with Reed’s comments echoing similar proclamations by new chancellor Rachel Reeves this week.

In addition to planning, a key commitment (yet to be addressed by Reed) would also need to be made on the agriculture budget, with required investment put at £4bn a year for England by the NFU.

At the same time, there were “various other issues” in need of greater recognition “if the sector is to unlock its potential for growth”, Bradshaw urged, such as a fit for purpose seasonal worker scheme, effective import controls, supply chain fairness and infrastructure investment.

And amid question marks on detail, he added that “to deliver on food security, they’ve now got to deliver meaningful policy underneath that”.

That’s a view shared by Liz Webster of campaign group Save British Farming, who led farmer protests in Whitehall in March and pointed out “there is no plan for food”.

Farmers “want honesty from the new government about their plan and goals”, she added, while calling on the new government to “pull out of the worst trade deals in history”.

Tackling all these challenges would then feed into confidence – something that is currently in short supply. “And if they can’t rebuild that confidence, they’re not going to get businesses investing for the future,” Bradshaw warned.

And on that topic, Food & Drink Federation CEO Karen Betts added “with the right conditions”, that the food sector “can boost investment, productivity, innovation and growth across our economy. There’s also huge scope to improve trade and develop skills nationwide, offering more people good jobs and great careers in a sector that’s central to everyone’s daily lives”.

Tackling the DRS and EPR ‘omnishambles’

Elsewhere, Starmer’s recent rowback on Labour’s environmental spending pledges has fuelled doubts over the future of flagship environmental projects which, under the last government, bordered on farcical.

Labour inherits an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) strategy to make manufacturers responsible for the cost of recycling – which is in chaos.

Thousands of companies, including many major fmcg giants, have failed to provide data despite government threats of fines. Meanwhile, despite Defra announcing before the election that the UK governments were pressing ahead with the rollout of a UK-wide deposit return scheme (scheduled for late 2027), there remain huge doubts over its future.

As shadow minister, Zeichner recently promised Labour would fix this “omnishambles”. Key talks will include trying to convince the Labour-run Welsh government to drop its insistence on including glass in the DRS scheme, which the industry has warned is a “recipe for disaster”.

A letter this week signed by bodies including the British Soft Drinks Association and the FDF said Labour had an “unprecedented opportunity to deliver a [DRS] scheme that has eluded other governments for nearly a decade” but that the Welsh situation risked ruining the chances of success. 

“Better co-ordination with government and across the whole food sector will be important as we move further and faster towards a more sustainable food system, as well as ensuring a zero waste and circular economy gets off the ground successfully through EPR and DRS,” urged the FDF’s Betts.

But it’s not just DRS and EPR that have been struggling. The war on plastic is also facing major problems in areas such as the misfiring single-use plastics tax.

Campaign groups are arguing it’s time to take a tougher line on the industry. “Labour must mandate a UK-wide all-in deposit return scheme, set legally binding reusable packaging targets, and implement a complete ban on all unnecessary single-use plastics,” said Jane Martin, CEO of environmental charity City to Sea.

“Having secured a historic majority, prime minister Starmer and his government now has no excuse to not implement lasting policies that tackle the plastic crisis head on,” added co-founder of campaign group A Plastic Planet, Sian Sutherland.

Health in focus

Having scraped home with a wafer-thin majority in his Ilford North constituency, all eyes will now be on whether new health secretary Wes Streeting will be more decisive on the future of public health and the food industry’s contribution to it.

Streeting fuelled expectations among health groups – and fears among many in the industry – with his threats of “steamrollering” companies into action on HFSS while in opposition. Then during the immediate run-up to the election, he revealed ultra-processed foods, seen by many as a ticking timebomb, was another area firmly on his radar.

Labour has said it will act where the previous government dithered in the clampdown on HFSS advertising pre a 9pm watershed, as well as online, while it is also expected to finish the rollout of the promotions ban to include multibuys, which was paused under the Tories.

Read more:

• Grocery heavyweights’ wishlist for new government

• BRC calls for new government to fast-track planning reform as footfall drops

• The Grocer’s six asks of the new Labour government

• The four Labour power players for food and drink

But there are indications this will be just the start of a radically new approach.

At an event hosted by the Tony Blair Institute this week, Streeting is understood to have said he plans to “lift people’s sights to the horizon” on health. This was interpreted as an acknowledgement that the new government believes better food and drink is at the heart of creating a healthier, fairer and wealthier society.

Streeting has also held a series of talks with “progressive” food companies amid fevered speculation among senior industry sources that Labour plans to revive key elements of Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy, raising the prospect of mandatory reporting on health metrics and, even more explosively, new taxes on HFSS food categories beyond soft drinks, despite Labour’s reluctance to use the T-word.

Labour is also expected to give local authorities greater powers to ban “junk food” outlets near schools, with Streeting having previously accused KFC of “taking the mick” by dragging councils through the courts so they can “pump fried chicken out by school gates”.

And while sources point out Streeting’s tough talking has become noticeably more political since the election result, Labour has already shown it is prepared to do things differently.

Pivot to ‘prevention’

Andrew Gwynne has been appointed parliamentary under-secretary of state for public health and prevention – the first time ‘prevention’ has been used in what was formerly the public health minister role.

Influential health nudge group Nesta has called for Labour to put the FSA in charge of mandatory health targets, based in part on the work already carried out by the Food Data Transparency Partnership.

At Blair’s event, Streeting referred to the instability and lack of leadership at the Department of Health & Social Care and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, a body which has been ravaged by cuts since it came in to replace Public Health England.

Few expect Streeting to fully take on the food industry in the first 100 days but the demands for drastic action are growing, including from Baroness Joan Walmsley, chair of the ongoing Lords inquiry into diet and obesity, who has accused the industry of “getting away with murder” on UPF.

Meanwhile, this week experts claimed extending the soft drinks levy was a “no brainer” after research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health claimed the tax significantly reduced the amount of sugar people were consuming after just one year, including slashing 3g off children’s and 5g off adults’ consumption of soft drinks.

Campaign groups are now confident Streeting will act on “mounting evidence”.

“We are pleased with the commitments in the manifesto such as the ban on energy drinks sold to under 16s and to banning advertising junk food to children,” said Katharine Jenner, director of the Obesity Health Alliance.

“Whilst Wes has notably shifted on his willingness to say publicly that he will intervene in the market, what is welcome is that he has seen the scale of the challenge and the failure to make significant progress via voluntary measures such as the sugar reduction programme, in comparison to the Soft Drinks Industry Levy,” she added.

“There is an appetite for regulation, and personally, having seen the passion and determination from Wes firsthand at the Tony Blair Institute conference, I would not like to get in the way of Wes’s steamroller.” 

We may still be waiting for more detail from the new government, but change, as promised by Keir Starmer, looks like it will soon be upon the food sector.