Plant-based Diet

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the benefits to human health and the wider environment by promoting a predominantly plant-based diet.

My Lords, we know that a diet based predominantly on fruit, vegetables and higher-fibre starchy foods but also containing some protein, such as beans, pulses, meat, fish or eggs, and dairy or dairy alternatives, as depicted in the UK’s Eatwell Guide, is associated with improved environmental outcomes and reduced risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but I am not quite sure what the Government are doing to arrive at that result. Currently around 62% of UK grain goes to feed livestock. Meat products, for instance, are only 32% of the calories consumed in the UK, but livestock feed and land space make up 85%. It is disproportionate, especially when you add in the known health impacts. I would like to know what measures the Government are taking to achieve a more plant-based diet.

I thank the noble Baroness, but I point out that the UK’s dietary guidelines, as depicted in the Eatwell Guide, to which I referred in my Answer, already recommend a diet that is based predominantly on plant foods. Analysis has shown that adherence to that guide does indeed improve both health and environmental outcomes. We are clear that we have to promote healthy eating messages based on that guide. We are working with the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition both to improve robust assessments of the evidence that we receive and to make sure that we work with our farming industry to produce environmentally sustainable food that we can rely on as a country and export.

My Lords, I chaired your Lordships’ inquiry into food, diet and obesity. We recommended that the school food standards, which are 10 years old, should be updated in the light of the latest dietary advice. The Department for Education agreed to that, and this is under way. Can the Minister tell us when the updated standards will be published? Can he say how many food industry representatives are on the advisory committee, and how many farmers? Will the new standards mandate a more plant-rich menu for schools? How will they be funded, monitored and enforced?

I am sure that I could fill up the whole of Question Time trying to address all those questions. I thank the noble Baroness for her interest and for the work that she undertook with the committee. Many of the recommendations from that report are being taken forward through the Government’s 10-year health plan. The plan has set out action to tackle the obesity crisis with a broad policy package aimed at improving food environments and ensuring better access for everyone. As regards the school food standards, we are working on this—coming up with standards to define the food and drinks that must be provided to schools and which must be restricted. We are looking particularly at foods that are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar.

I think it is important to respond to the point raised by the noble Baroness concerning the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. Members of that committee have a duty to act in the public interest, in accordance with the Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees, and to be independent and professionally impartial. The committee’s code of practice has been updated recently. Individuals are now eligible to be members only if they do not hold significant interests in relation to the food, drink, diet or supplement industries. So we can be assured that they are acting on impartial and independent grounds when they provide the Government with advice.

One thing that is important is clarity for farmers, and one idea could be to link farm payments to soil health and other good practices, through the SFI. I ask my noble friend the Minister: will the 25-year farming road map still be published this year, and will it be published along with other pieces of work, including the land use strategy?

I thank my noble friend for that question. As she suggests, the farming road map is part of a package of land-based strategies being published by Defra, which will include the food strategy. It will set out what is needed to restore nature, address climate change and support the production of healthy and sustainable food. The land use framework to which she referred will express the land use implications of these objectives and how the Government intend to manage trade-offs between them. The road map itself will describe how the farming sector will be supported to deliver land management and land use changes. I can say that it will be published in due course.

My noble friend mentioned the sustainable farming incentive. This pays farmers and land managers to carry out actions that support the sustainable production of food and boost farm productivity and resilience while protecting and enhancing the environment. I am pleased to say to your Lordships’ House that the SFI now has more than 39,000 multi-year live agreements, and is not only delivering sustainable food production and nature recovery for today and the years ahead but putting money back in farmers’ pockets.

My Lords, a number of elite athletes follow a plant-based diet, and some of the wealthier ones are investing in companies that produce plant-based foods, but we know that not all plant-based foods are necessarily healthy. For example, some plant-based burgers or sausage rolls have been found to have higher levels of sodium or salt than their meat-based equivalents. This can be very confusing for consumers, especially those who want to eat more healthily. Are the Government satisfied that consumers wanting to switch to a plant-based diet have enough information to understand which plant-based foods are healthier and which are not? If not, who do the Government think is responsible for ensuring that consumers get the appropriate information they need to make an informed choice?

I thank the noble Lord for his question and his observations. Speaking personally, I find that we are eating far more of a varied diet at home, and indeed often plant-based and purely vegan meals. That is generally generated by the desire of my teenage daughters to live a healthier lifestyle, even if they are not particularly my objectives. The noble Lord makes a point about the way that, through the food strategy and the Eatwell Guide, we are trying to ensure that people have a clear understanding of what a healthy, balanced diet looks like and can be accessed, whether that includes meat and dairy or, indeed, a purely plant-based approach. It is important that consumers of all ages can access that information, which is being promoted as part of the food strategy.

My Lords, the Minister has noted the importance of at least some meat-based protein in a varied and healthy diet. Have the Government assessed the relative merits for health and the wider environment of grass-fed meat of the sort that predominates in our western counties? I note my interest as a Devon farmer.

The important thing to say to the noble Earl is that it is about empowering people via the food strategy to have more and better options so that they can make better choices. That can include a range of different food options. No one is going to yield to me in my preference to have, occasionally, a very good West Country steak that has just passed through the kitchen, not lingering for too long. At the same time, it is very much part of a balance. It is important that we are able to demonstrate to people that, whether it is plant based or not just plant based, as long as there is a rich variety of foods on their plate, that is going to lead to a healthier outcome.

My Lords, is the Minister in a position to update the House on the commitment to end the use of neonicotinoids, the toxic insecticides that have a particular impact on biodiversity, insects and pollinators such as bees, which is a commitment that this Government made and the previous Government started to take action on a number of years ago?

I thank the noble Lord for his question. He is right: it is important that we are able to support not just bees but the bee farming industry to ensure that that is a sustainable future. I do not have the specific details on where we are up to in banning the insecticide that he mentioned, but I certainly undertake to write to him for more details.

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister referenced the Government’s food strategy that was published in July. We are still waiting for the implementation plans. In the development of those plans, will the Government undertake to look at the highly authoritative EAT-Lancet commission that published earlier this month, which demonstrated that globally a move to a more plant-based diet could reduce preventable deaths by 15 million a year, one-quarter of all such deaths globally?

I thank my noble friend for that question. The Eatwell Guide, the UK’s dietary guidelines and, indeed, the EAT-Lancet diet have shared principles and a shared understanding of what makes a healthy diet. We have not undertaken a formal assessment of the EAT-Lancet diet compared with the Eatwell Guide, but it is fair to say that the guide is based on modelling UK dietary recommendations against UK habits, whereas the EAT-Lancet diet has not been tailored to the UK population. People in the UK are more likely to be able to follow our guidelines more successfully than EAT-Lancet as our guidelines are specific to the UK.