UK bodies urge government to do more to boost accessibility and affordability of healthy food
Anna Taylor, executive director of the Food Foundation, has expressed doubts over the efficacy of removing tariffs on items such as gherkins, toffees and sweets to boost consumption of healthy food.
“The government’s budget recognises the cost-of-living crisis through measures on energy bills and housing but gives a worrying lack of attention to the UK’s food system as prices continue to rise, with healthier food nearly twice as expensive per calorie as less healthy,” she pointed out.
Economic pressures are pushing healthy diets further out of reach, she warned, leaving the NHS to bear the cost.
“We need the expansion of nutritional safety net schemes, such as Healthy Start, which gives targeted support for the UKs’ most vulnerable pregnant women and parents of toddlers so that they can access vital healthy items,” explained Taylor. “We also want to see a Good Food Bill that sets out a coherent long-term plan for the food system, brings government departments together behind legally binding targets and safeguards the British population from future shocks.”
The NFU called the Budget “a massive missed opportunity”, leaving no breathing space for UK food production, with president Tom Bradshaw saying the government had left farmers feeling abandoned.
“The OBR has reflected that the food price inflation outlook is significantly higher than previous forecasts,” he said. “Yet the government has failed to link domestic food production to food-price inflation, has missed the opportunity to deliver on its commitment that ‘food security is national security’ and failed to give farm businesses the ‘breathing space’ that the Chancellor said that this Budget was for.
“Action could have been taken on extending the Annual Investment Allowance to include infrastructure such as on-farm reservoirs or new poultry housing, action could have been taken to ease the dire cash flow impacting farms and our food producing businesses, and action should have been taken to reverse the investment-stifling family farm tax.
“This was pitched as the ‘Budget for the working people of Britain’, farmers and growers will not be feeling this extends to them.”
