David Amess

Conservative Party | Southend West

Food Labelling

Mr. David Amess (Southend, West) (Con): I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to introduce a uniform system for the labelling of food and drinks retailed in England and Wales to show the quantity of salt, sugar and fats they contain; and for connected purposes.
The Department of Health survey for England revealed that incidents of obesity have more than trebled in the past 20 years. For adults, that represents a rise of between 14 and 16 per cent., based on body mass index calculations for obesity. The rising obesity figures for children revealed by the survey for that period are even more alarming. While there was little change between 1974 and 1984, between 1984 and 1994 the prevalence of obesity increased to 1.7 per cent. of boys and 2.6 per cent. of girls. By 2002, those figures had risen to the extent that 5.5 per cent. of boys and7.2 per cent. of girls in England aged two to 15 years were categorised as obese.
Projecting these figures forward 15 years—assuming that incidents of obesity continue to increase steadily—it is shockingly estimated that one third of adults in England will be obese by 2020. A Royal College of Physicians report estimates that, if the rapid acceleration in childhood obesity that we have witnessed continues, incidents of obesity in children could rise above 50 per cent. by 2020.
I could go on with these statistics, but bemoaning the state that we have got ourselves into will not bring about change and reverse the damage already done. That is why I am presenting this Bill, which seeks to provide just one measure that might help consumers in Britain to make healthier choices about the foods that they buy in a market flooded with pre-packaged, mass-produced foods with long lists of complex ingredients. A single format for simplified front-of-package nutrition information—giving the amounts of salt, sugar and fat contained in the product, combined with an interpretive element such as colour coding—would certainly bring about a positive change in the way that we shop and eat. Moreover, if such a scheme is not taken up voluntarily by the food manufacturing and retail industries, the Government ought to make provision to ensure that standards are enforceable.
As the hon. Member for Lewisham, West(Jim Dowd) said in his splendid Adjournment debate last week, the Health Select Committee’s inquiry into obesity, which reported in May 2004, is indeed its “magnum opus”. The report highlighted the growing prevalence of obesity in the UK and its effect on people’s health, and the consequent impact on the health service of increasing incidents of weight-related illnesses such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes. The Committee estimated that the associated costs are between £3.3 billion and £3.7 billion a year, and this figure will continue to rise unless urgent steps are taken.
Nutrition-based advice pertaining to the calorie or fat content in foods can often be misleading. For example, a product advertised as 90 per cent. fat-free still contains 10 per cent. fat and could still be highin calories and salt. Such promotional information
prevents consumers from making the informed decisions that I know the Minister with responsibility for these matters wants them to be able to make. A more transparent and yet still simplified system of nutrition labelling would allow busy shoppers to make quick and informed decisions about the foods that they buy, and enable them to make comparisons with other products and brands.
The FSA action plan on food promotions and children’s diets and the public health White Paper “Choosing Health” endorse the voluntary scheme for giving simplified nutrition information on the front of packaged foods. More than 2,600 consumers were surveyed in June 2005 in one-to-one interviews to test responses to and the general understanding of possible nutrition information formats. The two models that emerged on top were the multiple traffic-light system and colour-coded guideline daily amounts. It appears that the success of those two formats lies in the combination of colour coding and numerical information that makes them both accessible and informative to the busy consumer. It appears that96 per cent. of the people surveyed thought that simplified packaging would enable them to have better health choices. Ninety per cent. were able correctly to use the traffic-light format to identify the levels of sugar, fat and salt in the products. That is compared with only 69 per cent. for colour coded guideline daily amounts.
In support of those findings, in the National Consumer Council snap-shot survey consumers sighted front-of-pack signpost labelling as one of the top three easy methods, alongside healthier school meals, that would help people eat more healthily and would help companies to cut down on salt, sugar and fat in processed foods.
Furthermore, there is research such as that undertaken by the consumer magazine, Which?, which I applaud. It shows that a multiple traffic-light labelling format was the preferred option for the majority of consumers and the most easily accessible system for low-income people and those from minority ethnic backgrounds.
There is an inherent danger in labelling some foods as being healthy, with other foods in contrast being regarded as unhealthy. That gives a wrong impression. Recommendation 23 of the Health Select Committee’s report stated that the Government must accept that some foods that are extremely energy dense should be eaten in moderation by most people. It therefore recommends that legislation should be introduced to introduce a traffic-light system for labelling foods either red for high energy density, amber for medium energy density or green for low energy density, according to criteria devised by the FSA.
Recommendation 24 says that although several interventions for better food nutrition labelling have been made, the traffic-light system stands up to objective assessment, and if accepted widely across the industry would be a good measure of the impact of shifts in consumption across supermarkets and brands from relatively unhealthy to healthier food products.
I regret that a number of companies seem not to support that recommendation, in contrast to leading supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s and Waitrose. All Members have received a letter from Danone, Kellogg’s, Kraft, Nestlé and PepsiCo, which want to go for the guideline daily amounts information labelling. I think that they are wrong in that regard and I wonder why they are taking that stance. Their approach is in contrast to the Health Select Committee report, the Government’s recommendation and the FSA’s report. The FSA believes that a consistent approach to food labelling will make it easier for consumers to eat more healthily and encourage consumers to look for and demand healthier food products, and incentivise businesses to produce foods that are lower in salt, sugar and fat content. I regret, for instance, that Tesco has gone ahead and done its own thing, which I believe is not in the public interest. I applaud the way in which Sainsbury’s supermarkets have introduced their own multiple traffic-light scheme, or wheel of health , which works on the principle of the FSA guidelines. Those symbols are now printed on the front packaging of more than 2,100 Sainsbury products, including and expanding on the recommendation list of items included by the FSA. Research that has been undertaken by Sainsbury’s found that the wheel of health had influenced the purchasing decisions of consumers.
Regulations on food labelling standards are currently set at a European level. The proliferation of different formats of simplified nutrition labels is a concern for consumers and the food manufacturers and retail industries alike. On 12 July the European consumers’ organisation presented the European Commission with the conclusions of a multi-stakeholder discussion group that included representatives from national Governments, industry, retailers and academics. I certainly support those conclusions.
The FSA, supported by the NCC, Which? and the Health Committee, recommends that industry-wide adoption of the single front-of-pack signposting scheme should be voluntary, but it would be in favour of mandatory take-up should this initial approach fail. Should a voluntary scheme fail to find unanimity among retailers and manufacturers, I urge the Government to step in to ensure an end to consumer confusion over nutrition labelling. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Amess, Dr. Richard Taylor, Mr. Ronnie Campbell, Sandra Gidley, Dr. Howard Stoate, Bob Russell, Jim Dowd, Charlotte Atkins, David Taylor, Mike Penning, Jeremy Corbyn and Dr. Doug Naysmith.
Food Labelling
Mr. David Amess accordingly presented a Bill to introduce a uniform system for the labelling of food and drinks retailed in England and Wales to show the quantity of salt, sugar and fats they contain; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 20 October, and to be printed [Bill 216].