Easter eggs: Deals & discounts to be BANNED in crackdown on obese Brits and 'our freedoms'
SPECIAL offers on Easter eggs could vanish under policies developed by "busybodies at the Department of Health", a former cabinet minister has warned.
PUBLISHED: 15:29, Sat, Mar 27, 2021 | UPDATED: 17:26, Sat, Mar 27, 2021
Ex-work and pensions secretary and former Tory leadership contender Esther McVey has launched a blistering attack on planned anti-obesity measures which could see a clampdown on price promotions for high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) products.
Last year the Government announced plans to restrict “buy one get one free” offers on these goods. New restrictions are also expected on where fatty and sugary products can be displayed in shops amid concerns that people are more likely to buy unhealthy food and drink if they see these items at shopping tills or the end of aisles.
Ms McVey accused the government department of “working up new proposals to clamp down further on the nation’s freedoms”.
She said: “There are so many issues the government needs to be tackling from building up intensive care capacity in our hospitals and constructing a social care system fit for the 21st century, to ensuring the whole country has reliable broadband and supporting businesses as we come out of the pandemic.
"But instead busybodies at the Department of Health and Social Care are working up plans to ban ‘buy one get one free offers’ as well as other promotions in shops on products they deem to be unhealthy.”
The Tatton MP claims the policy would hike up the cost of a family’s weekly shop and force small shops to spend thousands of pounds making changes.
Arguing that the “way forward is education and exercise,” she said: “The department of health must stop its obsession with these socialist-style interventions which don’t work anyway – and this Conservative Government must consign these policies to the bin where they belong. Let’s hope this isn’t the last year you can get a special offer on your Easter eggs.”
Ms McVey asked health minister Jo Churchill whether it is her department’s policy to “restrict the promotion or sale of Easter eggs”.
Ms Churchill said: “Easter eggs can be found on the shelves and in key prominent locations in stores, such as end of aisle, checkouts and store entrances, up to three months before Easter and consumers typically buy these products as soon as they are available in shops and offered on promotion. Therefore, these products are in scope of the promotion restrictions.”
