The House of Lords has said that “mandatory regulation is now needed” in the food and drinks industry to tackle the UK’s obesity crisis.

Today (24 October), the Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee published a report that stated that the UK needed a “radically new approach to the food industry” if it intends to fix the “broken food system”, as voluntary efforts to promote healthier foods have “failed”.

The report highlighed that England has one of the highest rates of obesity among high-income nations, with two-thirds of adults overweight or obesity.

Pointing to successful measures such as the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, which led to a reduction of more than a third of sugar content in drinks over the past four years, the report called for further action from the government.

Potential new policies include mandated reports by leading food and drink manufacturers of the percentage of sales of unhealthy foods, compulsory front-of-pack labelling, and a total ban of advertising of products high in fat salt and sugar (HFSS) and by businesses that “fail to reach healthy sales targets”.

The report added: “Food businesses that fail to meet healthy sales targets must be excluded from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention.”

Nomad Foods chief executive Stefan Descheemaeker said the report marked “major step forward” in tackling public health and diet.

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Descheemaeker said: “We support measures requiring companies to report on the proportion of their sales that come from healthy products, which we have been doing for the last seven years.

“On tax, we believe this should be science-based in line with the UK Government’s Nutrient Profiling Model, that determines whether a product is healthy or less healthy based on its overall nutritional profile, rather than focusing on the specific levels of individual nutrients.

“This model would then help incentivise companies to reformulate to create healthier products. We’d also like to see mandatory front of pack labelling, that would help consumers to make more informed food choices.”

Other leaders in the grocery industry has also voiced their support of the House of Lord’s report, with charity Impact on Urban Health children’s health and food programme co-director Nikita Sinclair adding that the organisation supported the levy.

She said: “We support the introduction of a levy on the food and drink industry, to encourage companies to improve their recipes and help increase the flow of healthy, affordable products available to children and families.”

“We further urge the Government to consider in the round how our food is produced, marketed and sold. Bringing together actors from across the food system is the best way to tackle entrenched health inequalities and deliver change at the scale that’s required to fix our broken food system.”

The House of Lord’s reports follow regulations implemented by Parliament over recent years, that saw a crack down on HFSS foods, including the banning of junk food adverts being shown on TV before 9pm.