Personal choice is baked into our policies, says No 10 in cakes in the office debate

RISHI SUNAK has suggested that office workers should be allowed to eat cake, after the head of the food watchdog compared bringing in treats for colleagues to passive smoking.

Prof Susan Jebb, chairman of the Food Standards Agency, told The Times that if nobody brought cakes into the office, “I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes in, I eat them”.

She said: “I have made a choice, but people were making a choice to go into a smoky pub,” and that “after a very long time” attitudes towards smoking had changed, but they still had not altered when it came to food.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman, asked whether Mr Sunak agreed that bringing cake to the office was like passive smoking, said: “No. The Prime Minister believes that personal choice should be baked into our approach.”

“We want to encourage healthy lifestyles and are taking action to tackle obesity, which costs the NHS £6 billion annually. However, the way to deal with this issue is not to stop people from occasionally bringing in treats for their co-workers.” The press secretary added that he was “very partial to a piece of cake” with his own favourites including carrot or red velvet cake.

No 10 distributed mini-cupcakes to reporters during the press conference in Parliament yesterday. It is not only offices, however, where bringing in sweet treats has become frowned upon. Head teachers have called for pupils not to bring in sweets, to avoid overindulging, and to manage allergies. St Anne’s RC Primary School in Oldham advised that “due to the increase in the number of children who have allergies”, pupils should not bring sweets, chocolate or cake for their birthday.

“Perhaps, these could be replaced with other items such as books, puzzles, stickers, pencils, stamps etc,” the school said. Huntingfield Preschool in South Croydon said that a “birthday book continues to be very popular and is a great alternative to sweets” and this would add to the class library and prove a “great alternative to sugar”.