One year in – progress for better food and farming under Labour 

At the start of 2024 Sustain set out our priorities for the manifestos of the parties that aspired to take power. It was to be a general election on 4 July 2024 that brought the Labour Party to a landslide victory after 14 years in opposition.  

On 5 July 2024 Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister and his ministry began. With Labour having pledged to champion British farming, support sustainable food production, and improve land use for nature and climate, and to cultivate the conditions for the healthiest generation of children ever, this first anniversary is a key moment to assess to what extent the reality is matching up to the rhetoric.  

Note: The assessment below does not seek to give a fully comprehensive overview of all the movements in the policy and political landscape of the last year in relation to UK food and farming. There are many more areas where Sustain members have been pressing for change.

Kath Dalmeny, Chief Executive of Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming, said:

“One year into a new government, Sustain is heartened by initial steps taken to improve the health profile of food sold in supermarkets and to improve food access for hundreds of thousands of children living in households on a low income, via free school meals and increased value of Healthy Start payments. However, we are worried by government's failure to tackle the undue influence of unhealthy food advertisers in policy processes, with many delays to proper restriction of unhealthy food marketing to children.

In relation to food production, many farmers are understandably angry about the impact of stop-start support for the critically important transition to agroecological farming, which makes business planning in an already precarious sector that much harder. It is also hugely worrying that there has been so little progress on a much-needed horticulture strategy, and on unfair dealing and grossly unfair prices in manufacturing and supermarket supply chains. We do however welcome the government's announcement of a review of farm profitability, renewed £150m funding for environmental measures on farms, and look forward to the Sustainable Farming Initiatives (SFI) being reopened in 2026.

All such action – for health, sustainable farming, climate and nature, must now be prioritised in the national food strategy. In our view, action should also be required by UK law, as it is in Scotland, making national government and local authorities accountable for decisive steps to improve our food system.”

Food Strategy

Key moments

• 10 December 2024: Steve Reed MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, outlined the government's plans to work with the sector to develop a new food strategy and “a food system that works for everyone”.   
• 21 March 2025: Alongside the announcement of a Food Strategy Advisory Board with mainstream retailers, foodservice companies, intensive meat producers and processed food manufacturers that has raised widespread concern (plus Anna Taylor, Director of the Food Foundation, a welcome civil-society voice), the government also confirmed the welcome establishment of the cross-departmental Ministerial Food Strategy Group intended to bring a ’joined-up approach to food across government’.
• 4 June 2025: The development of the Food Strategy to date has seen two major government policy announcements in Labour’s first year. First came the news that all pupils from households in receipt of Universal Credit will become eligible for free school meals from the start of the 2026/27 academic year (see more below).  
• 31 June 2025: The second major policy announcement of the Food Strategy saw a widely welcomed Government announcement on mandatory reporting and a new healthy food standard with targets to follow in the future (see also below). 

Challenges

The Government will need to demonstrate momentum with further regular policy announcements so that stakeholders can know the Food Strategy is not a series of piecemeal fixes, but a set of comprehensive policies that will bring about the intended outcomes.  

Ownership and leadership from across the Cabinet are needed, not just from Environment Secretary Steve Reed and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. The Prime Minister also needs to be driving progress on such a fundamental agenda, notwithstanding Starmer’s mounting domestic and international priorities.  

We are also keen to see proper incorporation of work by local authorities, public health bodies and sustainable food partnerships into the food strategy, giving them proper recognition, status and responsibilities. We have prepared a briefing in collaboration with Sustainable Food Places and submitted this to the Defra Food Strategy team.

What we’re waiting for/to know

What happens next: Beyond what we know about the process to date,  an ‘update’, ‘framework’ or ‘action plan’ is to be published ahead of Parliament heading into the summer recess. Defra has promised more information about how the Food Strategy "will move from concept to reality and how this will be done in partnership with everyone who has a stake in it". It is not expected that this will contain further policy announcements.    

Context

Most credible commentators are clear that new law and regulation is needed, including framework legislation on food systems. The Government will need to move forward with this before too long, and to do so when its own wider legislative programme for this Parliament is building, and what is already going through Parliament is taking longer than first expected.

Sustainable farming

Key moments

• 30 October 2024: The government announced changes to Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Relief (BPR) on agricultural and business property assets.
• 21 November 2025: The government announces plans for 25-Year Farming Roadmap, aimed at improving long-term profitability and sustainability 
• 31 January 2025: The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) launched a consultation on the Land Use Framework.
• 11 March 2025: The government announced the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme, with plans to redesign the scheme to deliver better value for money in terms of environmental delivery.
• 11 June 2025: The government has largely protected DEFRA’s core funding, with its total Departmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) falling by 0.7% in real terms over the Spending Review period, meaning a commitment of £2.7 billion a year for farming and nature recovery until 2029.

Challenges

Political instability and extreme weather have combined to make farming increasingly difficult. The agriculture sector remains under intense pressure from volatile global markets, rising costs, and growing expectations on climate and nature delivery. Evidence shows the land-use sector is off-track to meet Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) goals, particularly for climate and biodiversity.

The closure and delay of Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, including the precipitous closure in March 2025 of Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) payments for environmental improvements, has left many farmers in limbo, without access to the funding or advice needed to transition to agroecological forms of farming.

Trust between the government and farming communities- already strained post-Brexit- has been further eroded by tax changes affectiving farmers (Agricultural Property Relief - APR and Business Property Relief - BPR) and poor communication on future support schemes.

What we’re waiting for/to know

Horticulture Strategy: Labour has yet to publish a cross-departmental strategy for boosting domestic fruit and vegetable production. With less than 2% of farmland used for horticulture and the UK heavily reliant on imports from climate-vulnerable countries, this remains a major gap. Sustain and others are calling for a long-term growth strategy for UK horticulture, underpinned by investment to strengthen domestic production and consumption of home-grown fruit, vegetables and pulses.

Procurement: Labour committed in its manifesto to ensuring 50% of food in public procurement is local or sustainable. No standards or delivery plan have yet been published. Strong standards are needed to meet the government’s health, climate and nature targets: legally-binding standards to ensure that public sector food leads a transition to healthy, sustainable diets, reduces our impact on climate and nature and supports agroecological farming. Projects that unlock the supply of organic, UK-sourced vegetables, fruit, pulses and legumes into the public sector, to scale-up initiatives (such as Sustain's own Bridging the Gap pilots) need investment.

Fairness in the Food Supply Chain: Most UK farmers earn less than 1% of the profit from the food they produce. While Labour has emphasised profitability as a key goal, there are no firm proposals yet to better regulate buyer behaviour or ensure farmers receive a fair share of the profits for their produce. A comprehensive and unified regulatory framework to ensure farmers are protected from unfair dealing and are paid a fair price for the food they produce is widely being called for.

Context

Labour has set out an ambitious agenda to reshape farming policy, with early commitments such as the Land Use Framework, the 25-year roadmap, the farm profitability review, and a new Food Strategy marking important first steps. Yet so far, delivery on the ground has lagged far behind this ambition. Over the past year, uncertainty around schemes like the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) and delays to the rollout of Environmental Land Management (ELM) have eroded farmer confidence. Changes to agricultural inheritance tax have further distracted from Defra's core goal of delivering a sustainable farming transition post-Brexit.

Defra's renewed focus on farm profitability is a welcome shift - but it must now be matched with tangible policy action. Labour’s first year has laid useful groundwork, but the next 12 months must be defined by delivery. Without clear progress, the early manifesto promise of a ‘new deal for farmers’ risks falling flat. Turning strategy into action is essential if trust is to be rebuilt and meaningful change achieved on the ground.

Climate and nature

Key moments

• 12 November 2024: On emissions reduction targets, at the COP29 international climate change negotiations, the Prime Minister outlined the UK’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81% by 2035, which is legally-binding.
• 26 February 2025: The latest UK carbon budget was released. Carbon Budget 7 contains more detail on food and farming than previous budgets. In particular, it notes that while other industries are significantly decarbonising, food and farming is not, and is due to become the UK’s biggest carbon source by 2050. However, the emissions reductions targets are lower for food and farming than other sectors. A 39% reduction in emissions is needed by 2040, with the bulk of that coming from about a third fewer sheep and cattle, and a 25% reduction in meat consumption.
• 3 April 2025: In another sign the government is being held to account for its climate commitments, one of the largest intensive livestock units in Europe (planned for Methwold, Norfolk) was blocked on climate change grounds.

Challenges

The government has not set out in any detail how required changes to farming will be delivered in a just and equitable way, for example, by investing in healthy protein crops like pulses and legumes, and supporting farmers to exit polluting systems like intensive livestock farming. Only the highest tier farm payment schemes offer greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential.

Government investment budgets for climate mitigation are vastly higher for energy and transport transitions than those for agriculture and food.  

Food and agricultural products are the single largest source of imported emissions (21%). The government needs to uphold deforestation regulations and hold industries to account for their impacts overseas – especially intensive livestock corporations.

What we’re waiting for/to know

The government is due to release a renewed Environmental Improvement Plan in 2025. For many of the environmental targets that the UK is failing to achieve currently, farming is a key factor in this failure, including reducing nitrate and phosphate pollution, and protecting sites for nature).

The UK High Court has ordered the government to publish a new Carbon Budget Delivery Plan by 29 October 2025.

Children’s healthy food

Children’s food policy has seen a flurry of activity this year - from landmark manifesto pledges and new fiscal commitments to delayed regulations; alongside unanswered questions - leaving a mixed picture of progress, promise, and persistent gaps.

Key moments

• 17 July 2024: The King’s Speech confirmed plans to ban sales of energy drinks to under 16s, introduce universal primary school breakfast clubs, including a new Children’s Wellbeing Bill and a new Child Poverty Task Force.
• 2 September 2024 and 30 October 2024: Government extends Household Support Fund for another 6 months, followed by further extension for a year up to 31 March 2026.
• 30 October 2024: The Autumn Budget delivered on our calls to uprate the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), and committed to explore expansion to milk-based drinks, but the government response to a groundbreaking House of Lords’ report on food, diet and obesity was widely seen as disappointing.
• 28 April 2025: The Treasury launched a consultation on lowering the entry threshold for the SDIL and remove the exemption for milk-based sugary drinks and plant-based milk alternatives. Consultation deadline is 21 July. The Spring Budget also replaced the Household Support Fund with a new multi-year Crisis and Resilience Fund, enabling local councils to continue providing school holiday food support to low-income families.
• 4 June 2025: Government announced expansion of free school meals to all pupils from households in receipt of Universal Credit, to start from the 2026/27 academic year and a review of School Food Standards.
• 30 June 2025: As part of the 10 Year Health Plan, the Government announced (ahead of the wider package) the introduction of a new 'healthy standard' for the food and drinks industry requiring them to report on the overall healthiness of their sales, with targets to follow for healthy sales.
• 3 July 2025: The new 10 Year Health Plan sets out a helpful programme of commitments, for example to require mandatory reporting by supermarkets on health, to increase the value of Healthy Start payments for healthy food for households on a low income with young children, and to improve and extend the Soft Drinks Industry Levy.

Challenges

Whilst developments on school food access and standards are welcome, there are funding issues associated with current initiatives, a lack of attention to early years feeding and also to ensuring standards throughout are properly monitored. 

The Government is putting a lot of focus on how it is working with food and drink companies, including on delays to marketing regulations, food industry health reporting, and only voluntary guidance on commercial baby food composition and marketing, rather than robust regulations.  

The dominant debate about using GLP1 drugs to address overweight and obesity has overshadowed the diverse range of public health and prevention interventions including those designed to increase access to healthy food and protect children and families from junk food marketing, promotion and misleading health claims.

What we’re waiting for/to know

With the 10-Year Health Plan promising a shift to prevention, we expect to see more actions to be set in detail around diet, early intervention and food system transformation.

Food reformulation and tax: We await the outcome of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy review, with the consultation open until 21 July, and announcement expected as part of the Autumn Budget 2025. We’d like to see signals that the Government will look to expand use of levies beyond soft drinks – either as part of the food strategy, the 10 Year Health Plan or ongoing fiscal and health planning.

Tackling inequalities: Whilst expansion of Free School Meals has been linked to the Government’s Child Poverty strategy, we hope to see further movement on this and to strengthen the Healthy Start programme – auto enrolment for both schemes and possibly some movement on the two-child benefit cap.

Energy drinks: We are still waiting for the proposals to ban sales of energy drinks to under-16s to be published for consultation.

School food quality: The review of School Food Standards should be accompanied by a tighter monitoring and compliance system – several Sustain alliance members are involved advising the government, so watch this space!

Commercial baby and toddler food: Recent research into the nutritional quality, labelling and packaging of a wide range of foods marketed for babies and toddlers has exposed huge gaps in regulations governing the commercial baby and toddler food sector. The Government should implement the recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority report on formula and follow on milks. We are still awaiting publication of the voluntary guidance on composition, marketing and labelling of commercial baby and toddler foods, but call on the government to beyond voluntary measures.

Context

Labour has set out an ambitious strategy to create the ‘healthiest ever generation of children’ as well as to target child poverty. The announcements on breakfast clubs, school food eligibility and the crisis and resilience fund reflect these priorities.

Health ministers have put significant emphasis on shifting government focus from treatment to prevention, with numerous processes including a review of the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, a new cross-government Child Poverty Taskforce, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and the 10 Year Health Plan all acting as jigsaw pieces in Government plans, including announcements on breakfast clubs, school food eligibility and the crisis and resilience fund. However, it is far from clear how these pieces will fit together as a coherent strategy for a healthier food system for children.

Industry lobbying against healthy food regulations has also played out during Labour’s first year, leading to further delays and weakening of forthcoming advertising regulations (see below), a lacklustre response to the House of Lords recommendations on food, diet and obesity, and no sign of progress on commercial baby food regulations yet.

While new policies signal ambition to address this, such as proposed retailer, manufacturer and out-of-home reporting and targets for healthy sales, major details remain outstanding, and the expanded use of commercial food taxes and levies must be seen as a complementary measure to accelerate progress. The implementation of the 10-Year Health Plan and the ongoing Food Strategy process will be a crucial test of government intent.

Healthier food advertising policies

Key moments

• 30 January 2025: In their response to the House of Lords Food, diet and obesity report, the government recommitted to TV and online advertising restrictions “without delay”. 
• 13 January 2025: The Advertising Standards Authority widened the scope of TV and online advertising restrictions to include brand-only and determined that each individual advert needs monitoring. 
• February 2025: The food industry threatened the government with a legal challenge over the extension of scope to brand only within the TV and online advertising regulations 
• May 2025: The Government announced a further delay and dilution to TV and online advertising restrictions, from October 2025 to January 2026 
• 3 July 2025: Within the 10 Year Health Plan, the Government did not give any specifics or further commitments to advertising restrictions beyond a statement to restrict unhealthy food advertising “targeted at children”.

Challenges

It’s become increasingly clear over the past couple of decades that if we want to champion children’s health, we must restrict unhealthy food advertising. When the Government entered Downing Street in the summer of 2024, they were walking into a legacy of powerful evidence, carefully designed interventions and years of precedent for successful, well implemented advertising policies. Plus these were policies that the British public were not only familiar with, but the vast majority backed – with 8 out of 10 adults supporting unhealthy food advertising restrictions on TV and online.

Those proposals were set to come into force this October, so all the incoming government had to do was hold firm and wave them over the line. There was also expectation for an even brighter horizon for unhealthy food advertising restrictions from a government that made it their mission to make the healthiest generation of children ever. However, as we now know, it did not unfold that way.

What we’re waiting for/to know

Will this Government deliver on unhealthy food advertising restrictions on TV and online by January 2026? This policy has already been delayed by over 3 years. Plus this government had recommitted to the latest timeline only four months before they delayed it again. 

The Government is currently passing it through the legislative process to remove brand-only advertising from being in scope, but this process could open opportunities to further weaken the policy beyond its current state. 

There will be (yet another!) consultation on this policy – this time on how the legislation should be worded to exempt brand only adverts from the rules. 

Will the Government ever get round to addressing all the other unhealthy food advertising which is worsening food related ill health across mediums like outdoor, transport, direct mail and radio?

Context

The elephant in the room here is the tactics used by industry to undermine the policy process every step of the way. It was hoped that the Government’s pledge to create the healthiest generation of children ever would embolden an administration with the necessary courage and determination to defend children’s right to health.

However, in their first year, we’ve seen low ambition from government and susceptibility to falling for industry tactics that put business interests before children’s health. Examples include delaying and diluting the TV and online advertising policy, and  (despite so much great precedent and evidence from Sustain-supported local governments advertising restrictions), no government conversation about unhealthy food advertising across outdoor spaces.

The Government has promised a quick turnaround on the latest legislative change to the TV and online advertising restrictions and a January implementation date. The next 6 months will be a litmus test for their willingness to champion children’s health over industry.