Less Healthy Food and Drink: Advertising Restrictions Secondary Legislation and Consultation Response

Statement

This Government has set a bold ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and this includes tackling the childhood obesity crisis. As part of this, we committed in our Manifesto to implementing advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on TV and online.

I updated the House on 16 July when launching a consultation on the draft regulations to provide an explicit exemption for brand advertising from the advertising restrictions. The consultation, which closed on 6 August 2025, re-confirmed the Government’s policy position that brand advertising which does not identify a less healthy food or drink product(s) is out of scope of the restrictions. This was set out in my previous statements to the House and was understood by Parliament during the passage of the primary legislation (Health and Care Act 2022 which amended the Communications Act 2003). The consultation sought views on the drafting of the regulations to ensure they are clear and fit for purpose in achieving this.

We have carefully considered the responses, many of which were submitted on behalf of organisations from a range of sectors. The Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport also engaged with stakeholders throughout the consultation period to understand a broad range of views.

I am delighted to inform the House that, today, the Government will lay the Advertising (Less Healthy Food and Drink) (Brand Advertising Exemption) Regulations 2025 and Explanatory Memorandum before Parliament. The Government will also be publishing its response to the consultation on Gov.uk.

We have been careful to protect the primary policy objective by ensuring the regulations set robust and objective criteria to only permit brand advertising that does not identify specific less healthy food or drink products. This means we are being tough on junk food advertising but not pigeon-holing brands as ‘less healthy’ and instead incentivising them to reformulate and promote their healthier products. The regulations will enable the regulators to provide clear guidance on how they will enforce the restrictions. They will also allow industry to invest in advertising campaigns with confidence that they will be compliant.

Laying this legislation today demonstrates our rapid progress to implementing the advertising restrictions which take legal effect on 5 January 2026. As I set out in my WMS of 22 May, we have secured a unique commitment from advertisers and broadcasters, with the support of online platforms, to voluntarily comply with the restrictions from 1 October 2025. We welcome this co-operation.

We will now work closely with Ofcom and the Advertising Standards Authority as they finalise their implementation guidance. I am delighted that in taking this action we are tackling childhood obesity head-on by removing up to 7.2 billion calories from UK children’s diets each year.