Dear Prime Minister,

Today you have thrown away your right to claim England is world-leading in its policies to promote children’s health. You have told us time and again that your government would deliver on its strategy, including ending junk food advertising to children, only to u-turn after the law has already passed. At a time when child health has worsened over the pandemic so that now 1 in 4 children leave primary school with obesity, and people who live in lower income areas are twice as likely to be affected, you are delaying policies that are both vital for levelling up and popular with 74% of the public. It is not too late to reconsider and protect the next generation from diet-related disease. Please don’t u-turn on child health.

Signed by:

Jamie Oliver, Chef and Campaigner

Ian Walker, Executive Director of Policy, Information and Communications, Cancer Research UK

James Toop, CEO, Bite Back 2030

Chris Askew, Chief Executive, Diabetes UK

Dr Charmaine Griffiths, Chief Executive, British Heart Foundation

Anna Taylor OBE, Executive Director, The Food Foundation

Jyotsna Vohra, Director for Policy and Public Affairs, Royal Society for Public Health

Caroline Cerny, Alliance Lead, Obesity Health Alliance

Kath Dalmeny, Sustain, the Alliance for Better Food and Farming

Barbara Crowther, Children’s Food Campaign 

Stephanie Slater, School Food Matters

Professor Maggie Rae, President, Faculty of Public Health

Tim Lang, Centre for Food Policy

Professor Graham MacGregor, Action on Salt and Sugar

Matthew Philpott, Executive Director, Health Equalities Group

Rebecca Sunter, Childhood Obesity Programme Director, Impact on Urban Health

Patti Rundall, Baby Milk Action

Maria Bryant, UK Association for the Study of Obesity 

Paul Aveyard, Professor of Behavioural Medicine, University of Oxford

Lorraine Tulloch, Programme Lead, Obesity Action Scotland 

Dr Mimi Tatlow-Golden, Senior Lecturer, The Open University

Professor Mark Petticrew, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Prof. Niamh Fitzgerald, Institute for Social Marketing & Health, University of Stirling

Professor John Wass, Professor of Endocrinology, Oxford University and Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) NHS England 

Louise Davies, Founder, Food Teacher’s Centre UK 

Rob Percival, Head of Food and Health Policy, Soil Association

Dr David Strain, Chair of the British Medical Association’s Board of Science

Professor Emma Boyland, Chair of Food Marketing and Child Health, University of Liverpool

June O’Sullivan, CEO, London Early Years Foundation

Jude Taylor, CEO Together Active Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent