Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston is calling for supermarkets to be banned from offering cut price deals on junk food, reports Mailonline.
Wollaston, a former GP, told the Mail that too many supermarket offers were for crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks. The big retailers’ strategy was encouraging cash-strapped shoppers to have a poor diet, she said.
She warned that voluntary agreements with big chains – like those brokered under the Coalition’s controversial Responsibility Deal – had failed to work, and that retailers should now be forced to offer discounts on fruit and vegetables.
Dr Wollaston said she intended to use her recent appointment as chair of the Health Select Committee to challenge “all the crap from the lobbying industry, big alcohol and junk food industry”.
Wollaston said that the junk food industry was unlikely to act voluntarily. “They worry about the other manufacturer down the road – the industry itself says it needs regulation”.
