In response to the Health and Social Care Committee Inquiry into Food and Weight Management, Dr Manu Savani submitted evidence on lessons that could be learnt from the failure of previous policies in this space, and finding the balance between voluntary and mandatory policies, and between tax and incentive.
Dr Manu Savani’s (Senior Lecturer in Behavioural Public Policy, Brunel University of London) recommendations were:
Recommendation 1: Policy packages that aim to make meaningful change to obesity rates need to be ambitious, wide-ranging, and confidently combine both voluntary and mandatory policy approaches. There is evidence of public support for such a combined approach. Policies that focus on regulating and altering the practices on food producers and corporate interests are likely to find backing from the general public. So too are policies that both protect younger consumers from predatory marketing influences and empower them to understand what is in the food they buy and the potential effects on their health.
Recommendation 2: The appropriate balance of policies needs to be carefully couched within economic and social impact analysis, and analysis of unintended consequences arising from regulations, bans, taxes and levies. We have lessons from past UK policy and countries around the world, and these should be placed alongside timely research with British consumers and citizens. Policy proposals can and should be tested against public attitudes to understand likely behavioural responses.
See the full evidence submission here (published by the committee Feb 2026)