Less Healthy Food and Drink: Advertising Restrictions Consultation

As part of our ambition to tackle the childhood obesity crisis and raise the healthiest generation of children ever, this Government made a manifesto commitment to implement advertising restrictions for less healthy food or drink on TV and online.

My statement on 22 May informed the House of the Government’s revised approach to implementing the restrictions in response to stakeholder concerns with the Advertising Standards Authority’s draft implementation guidance. Having secured agreement from broadcasters and advertisers to voluntarily comply with the restrictions from 1 October 2025, I laid a statutory instrument on 3 June to change the coming into effect date of the restrictions to 5 January 2026.

The next step is to bring forward regulations that will provide the explicit exemption for brand advertising. We have worked closely with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and I am pleased to update the House that today we are launching a consultation on the draft regulations. We are seeking stakeholder views on the draft text to ensure that it provides the clarity that the regulators and stakeholders have asked for and is fit for purpose in delivering the Government’s policy intentions to restrict advertising for less healthy food or drink products. The consultation will only seek feedback on the drafting of the brand advertising exemption and will not revisit any other aspects of the policy that are already confirmed and set out in law. The consultation will be published on gov.uk shortly and be open until 6 August 2025.

The brand advertising exemption will provide legal clarification on the existing policy intention, as it was understood and agreed by Parliament during the passage of the legislation in 2021-2022, that brand advertising that does not identify a specific less healthy food or drink product is out of scope of the restrictions. It is not a change of policy. Setting this out in legislation will enable the regulators to deliver clear implementation guidance and mean that businesses can prepare advertising campaigns with confidence.

These actions demonstrate our commitment and progress to implementing this important policy for children’s health. I will update the House once the consultation process has concluded.

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