The hon. Gentleman highlights how important it is to have that community-based support in an area. Unfortunately, not every mother across the UK can say the same. There are areas where they have to travel up to an hour by car to attend that sort of group, and I will come on to that point.
When I had my daughter, five years after my son, the support that I had relied on had all but vanished. The Milk group was now being run out of, in effect, a broom cupboard at my local leisure centre, with no opportunity to socialise with other mums. Only six months later, the pandemic hit and my daughter’s health visitor reviews were done via Zoom, often without my daughter even on the screen. The local children and family centre in my constituency never reopened in the same way after the pandemic.
I was one of the lucky ones because I had already built my village around me five years earlier and I had a network of friends and family that I could call on. However, for those who have become new mothers in the last decade, that support has been all but vaporised, with community support groups patchy and often delivered by volunteers or those wonderful midwives in their time off.
It is essential to acknowledge and support those parents who cannot or choose not to breastfeed, to ensure that they feel empowered and confident in the decisions they make for their children’s nutrition and wellbeing. I am a proud advocate of every parent having choice, but that choice should be an informed one. Currently, it is not a level playing field, with formula companies preying on the vulnerability of parents.
The Competition and Markets Authority launched a market study into the formula industry in February 2024 and published its results earlier this year. The study provided a comprehensive, in-depth and up-to-date exploration of the infant formula market in the UK through a consultative process that has offered unique insights into the industry. A short extract from the CMA’s overview of its findings states: