Tory grandee William Hague today blasted Boris Johnson’s “intellectually shallow, politically weak and morally reprehensible” junk food U-turn.
The former leader said it is a “national disgrace” that a fifth of children are obese by age 11 in a damning verdict on the Prime Minister.
Mr Johnson had pledged to end buy-one-get-one-free and ‘3 for 2’ supermarket deals on unhealthy food and drink this October.
But the ban has been pushed back to October 2023 and could be shelved permanently - after he demanded ideas to tackle families’ bills.
Tory ministers have also delayed the ban on junk food TV ads before the 9pm watershed and online - coming in only in January 2024.
And restrictions on free soft drink refills at popular restaurants will be delayed to October 2023.
Restrictions on putting high-fat, salt or sugar products at checkouts, entrances and the end of aisles will still kick in this October.
But the U-turn was blasted by campaign groups Action on Sugar and Action on Salt.
Chairman Prof Graham MacGregor said: “ Boris Johnson could have left a legacy of being the first Prime Minister to address obesity in a meaningful way, particularly in restricting advertising and promotion of unhealthy food which were his flagship policies.
“Instead, he has given in to his own MPs, and an aggressive food industry, who – ironically - were starting to comply with these new policies.
“This completely contradicts the Government’s levelling up ambitions.
“It will also massively impact the NHS and the nation’s health, which will suffer the consequences and escalating cost of treating obesity, Type 2 Diabetes and tooth decay.”
Writing in The Times today, Lord Hague said the U-turn “adds to the long history of failed obesity strategies”.
“It means the current government's anti-obesity drive will probably join the 14 strategies and 689 different policies over the past 30 years, according to a Cambridge University study, that have failed to deliver,” he said.
He added: “Tragically, one in five children are obese by the age of 11, their chances of living a long and healthy life already impaired. It is a national disgrace.”
Lord Hague condemned anti-‘nanny state’ Tory MPs who had demanded an end to the junk food crackdown as a condition of keeping the PM in power.
“As a former Tory leader, I emphatically disagree with this interpretation of conservatism,” he wrote.
“Conservatives support freedom of choice but have always seen that it is sometimes necessary to prevent consumers being abused or misled.”
He said the cost-of-living argument is “baseless” because promotions actually lead to people spending more, buy buying food they did not need and trapping them in a “junk food cycle”.
He added: “Freedom is climbing a mountain without physical distress and looking down from the top with exhilaration and wonder.
“These are the freedoms being denied to vast numbers of people who are the victims, not the free agents, in a system that wants to fill them up with salt, sugar and saturated fat.”
He went on: “MPs who have pressed, seemingly successfully, for the dilution of the obesity strategy are profoundly mistaken. They are acquiescing in a future of higher dependence, greater costs, reduced lifestyle choice and endless pain.
“For the government to give in to them is intellectually shallow, politically weak and morally reprehensible.”
