In this Autumn Budget 2025 submission, we focus on considerations for the Treasury in three main areas: health, education, and environment and rural affairs.
The Autumn Budget presents a key opportunity to align the Government’s food and farming systems with ambitions to grow the economy, improve public health and tackle inequalities, as well as address climate change and loss of biodiversity.
In health, Sustain’s recommendations include that the Government expand eligibility of Healthy Start and increase allowances in line with food price inflation. With costs of diet-related ill health at £98 billion a year, HM Treasury should strengthen and expand the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), bring forward fiscal measures to drive food reformulation and Healthy Food Standard implementation, and use revenues from SDIL and future levies to invest in children’s health.
In education, for the Government’s ambition to create the ‘healthiest ever generation of children’, sustainable funding of healthy school food must be ensured, with free school meal funding in 2026/27 sufficient to cover the full costs of delivery.
In environment and rural affairs, action is needed to strengthen the pivotal role farming plays in addressing urgent climate and nature challenges while underpinning resilient food production. The Environmental Land Management schemes represent a forward-thinking approach. However, funding levels and advisory support are insufficient. A well-funded long-term policy framework is needed for horticulture. Increased investment and targeted reforms are needed to ensure that UK farming contributes to the Environmental Improvement Plan, mitigates climate risks, and supports farmers and consumers in a sustainable food system.
Sustain urges HM Treasury to prioritise the full set of recommendations in our submission to ensure the UK’s food and farming sectors thrive in a fair, resilient, and sustainable economy in the coming years.
Alongside this submission, Sustain has joined together with diverse organisations on the imperative that child poverty falls from its current record high and called on the Government to scrap the two-child limit, given much this affects whether families can afford to eat, and to eat well.
Download Sustain representation to the Autumn Budget 2025
Sustain: Sustain The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity.
