Keir Starmer to ban TV junk food ads before 9pm in UK public health drive

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Junk food advertisements will be banned before 9pm on television next year as part of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s drive to improve public health.

Paid-for online adverts for unhealthy food products will be stopped altogether under the new rules, which will come into force in the UK on October 1 2025, fulfilling a key Labour manifesto pledge.

“Our health mission makes clear that this requires a prevention revolution, tackling the drivers of preventable illness and reducing demand on health services,” health minister Andrew Gwynne said in a written statement to the Commons on Thursday.

“These restrictions will help protect children from being exposed to advertising of less healthy food and drinks, which evidence shows influences their dietary preferences from a young age.”

Gwynne said more than one in five children in England at present were overweight or living with obesity by the time they started primary school, rising to more than one-third by the time they left. 

The previous Conservative government announced a similar pre-watershed prohibition on TV promotions of junk food under then prime minister Boris Johnson, but shelved the plan. 

News of the ban came on the same day independent peer Lord Ara Darzi released a landmark report into the state of the NHS, which found the health service was in a “critical condition” after suffering a £37bn shortfall in capital spending compared with peer countries since the 2010s. 

It attributed the poor state of the country’s health service in large part to austerity policies adopted through the 2010s, which Darzi argued had throttled much-needed investment in infrastructure and staff, and made the service much more vulnerable to the shock presented by Covid-19.

In a speech to mark the release of the report, Starmer vowed he would provide the NHS with “no more money without reform” as he made a commitment to prioritise public health and investment to help prevent illness.

“We have to go to a preventive model, I’m absolutely convinced about that,” he said, adding that the government would be more ambitious on early interventions in areas such as children’s mental health and dentistry.

“I know some prevention measures will be controversial but I’m prepared to be bold, even in the face of loud opposition,” he said, pointing to action in a range of fields, including diet and lifestyle.

This article has been corrected to say that junk food advertisements will be banned before 9pm, not after 9pm