MP calls on premier to back new limits on junk food adverts

MP Liz McInnes has called on the government to back celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign to introduce a 9pm watershed on junk food advertising on television.

Oliver also wants controls on what advertisements can be seen online, in the street and on public transport.

Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Ms McInnes, whose constituency also includes Norden, Bamford and Castleton, said: “In my constituency of Heywood and Middleton in the borough of Rochdale, one in three of year six children are overweight or obese.

“With our children being bombarded with junk food ads on their favourite television programmes, on billboards and even on bus tickets, will the Prime Minister take the bold steps needed to tackle junk food marketing and support Jamie Oliver’s campaign ●●Liz McInnes (second from right) joins fellow Labour MPs and peers on College Green, London, supporting Jamie Oliver’s #Adenough campaign to stop junk food ads before the watershed and say that she too has ‘Ad enough’?”

Mrs May replied: “We already have plans to tackle childhood obesity that are world-leading. No other developed country has done anything as ambitious.

“Our soft drinks industry levy - that’s bold action we’re taking. Our sugar reduction programme is going to cut the amounts of sugar consumed by young people.

“And of course we’re putting in plans in relation to the amount of exercise that primary schoolchildren get every day.

“Those steps will make a real difference and a real help in reversing the problem that has been decades in the making.

“But of course we haven’t ruled out further action if the right results aren’t seen.”

Last year Rochdale banned ice cream vans from operating outside schools and stopped new takeaways opening within 400m of primary schools.

Similar fast food restrictions have been in place near secondary schools since 2013.

In 2016 a third of 10 and 11-year-olds and one in five four-to-fiveyear-olds in Rochdale were classified overweight or obese.

Rochdale was ranked the fifth worst place in the UK for tooth decay among five-year-olds, with 43 per cent of kids having cavities in at least one tooth.