Health secretary Wes Streeting has rejected large swathes of a House of Lords report calling for the food industry to be “held to account” for its role in the obesity crisis.
In a response to the House of Lords inquiry, published today, Streeting ruled out proposals to freeze food companies and trade bodies out of negotiations on health policy.
The government also raised a series of “barriers”, which it said would mean no immediate introduction of mandatory health targets for food and drink companies to make products healthier.
The report was widely welcomed by industry leaders. However, health campaign groups are understood to be furious and have expressed fears that the government is not following through with its promise to intervene in public health, in the wake of Lord Darzi’s report into the crisis facing the NHS.
October’s publication of the report by the Lords Food, Diet & Obesity Committee had called for sweeping action on health, including announcing within two years a new salt and sugar reformulation tax, and regulation to target HFSS products outside the established soft drinks levy.
It also called for a “decisive shift away from voluntary measures” to a system of mandatory regulation of the food industry.
But in his response Streeting, who had previously promised to “steamroller” companies that stood in the way of moves to tackle obesity, said that voluntary action by food companies could be “implemented more quickly and provide space for innovation”.
“The government continues to review the balance between mandatory and voluntary measures to help improve poor diets, reduce obesity and improve the food system,” he said. “We recognise that mandatory regulation can drive change and could be welcomed by parts of the food industry for setting a level playing field between companies who have already taken voluntary action and those who have yet to do so.”
But he added: “Approaches to reducing obesity must balance effective and enforceable mandatory policies that all companies must adhere to, while also exploring voluntary standards for best practice. This can help inform better regulation in the future and avoid creating undue costs for businesses and consumers.”
Streeting said the government was still reviewing the future role of the Food Data Transparency Partnership, set up under the last government, which has been working on setting voluntary targets on the proportion of healthy food sold by companies.
Campaign groups had hoped that the new Labour government would cave in to calls from the Lords for the targets to be made mandatory.
But in his response today, Streeting said that “technical barriers” including the availability and quality of data, as well as the appropriate scope for reporting, including own-brand compared to branded goods and foods, including foods sold in franchises, would make a level playing field for mantatory reporting difficult.
“These challenges need to be resolved before we can move to further questions about reporting,” he said.
Similar barriers faced calls to extend the soft drinks sugar levy, the health secretary added.
Meanwhile, Streeting firmly ruled out calls in the report for food companies selling HFSS products to be frozen out of discussions on public health policy.
The Lords’ report accused the previous administration of caving in to pressure from food companies in the series of previous rollbacks on health.
“We have no plans to exclude food businesses or industry representatives based on the percentage of sales a business derives from less healthy products,” said Streeting.
“Such an approach would prevent effective engagement with many of the companies where change is most needed.
“This approach would also favour large companies which may sell more tonnes of HFSS products than other companies, but where HFSS sales are only a small percentage of their overall sales due to selling many other types of products.”
Streeting said the government’s National Food Strategy, talks for which are yet to get off the ground, was seeking to build a coalition that would see the industry and government work together to tackle the obesity crisis.
“In creating the food strategy, we are working to build strong partnerships with the sector to draw on shared expertise and collective commitments, backed by a clear vision and framework for change from government,” he said.
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