I am going to come on to teaspoons, and I do not want to run out of time before I do so. I will make a bit more progress and then see how we are getting on for interventions.
The Government cannot tackle obesity alone. I welcome the fact that we have consensus across the House on that, and the Committee draws that point out in its report. Businesses, health professionals, schools, local authorities, families and individuals have a role to play, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) brought out.
I want to talk about some of the industry action that has been taken. There has been progress in recent years on reducing sugar consumption. The focus under the voluntary partnership arrangements, which have been discussed, has been on overall calorie reduction, of which sugar can form a part. Billions of calories and tonnes of sugar have been removed from products and portion sizes have been reduced in some areas. Some major confectionery manufacturers have committed to a cap on single-serving confectionery at 250 calories, which is an important step.
We have to be realistic about consumer relations, which are important. Before I was an MP, I worked for the John Lewis Partnership—John Lewis and Waitrose—and I know only too well the important role that retail relationships play in an average family’s life. We need to involve those partners. Some retailers have played a part, for example by removing sweets from checkouts. Interestingly, they did so after asking their customers in surveys what support they wanted, as family shoppers, from industry to help them to make healthier choices. Much of the action that retailers have taken was in response to that.
I was very interested in the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) made in an intervention about consumer power. There is much greater consumer power to be unleashed, but the challenge to the industry to make further substantial progress remains. Like the Chair of the Health Committee, I have had some encouraging conversations in that regard, but we need to make more progress.
Providing clear information to consumers to help them make healthier choices is important, as a number of hon. Members have set out. The voluntary front-of-pack nutrition labelling scheme, introduced in 2013, plays a vital part in our work to encourage healthier eating and to reduce levels of obesity and other conditions. The scheme enables consumers to make healthier and more balanced choices by helping them better to understand the nutrient content of foods and drinks.
I turn to the issue of teaspoons of sugar, which has come up a lot in the debate. It is more complicated than something so simple should be; “teaspoons” sounds straightforward, but labelling is an EU competence, so member states cannot mandate additional forms of expression, such as spoonfuls of sugar, for pre-packed food. Under EU legislation, it would be possible for companies to represent sugar content in the form of spoons of sugar or sugar cubes on a voluntary basis, as long that met a number of EU criteria—I will outline what some of them are. It would sit alongside front-of-pack nutrition information, which I remind the House is voluntary, not mandated, in order to meet the same criteria.