Metro’s Formula for Change campaign gets huge boost at parliament

MPs have gathered in Westminster to throw their support behind Metro’s Formula for Change campaign with charity Feed, calling for infant formula milk to be more affordable and accessible.

At the parliamentary drop-in event, Labour MP for Blackpool South Chris Webb joined the campaign team to encourage peers to push for legislative change to help families buy formula.

With costs soaring by 25% in the past two years, desperate parents have been reduced to watering down formula and even stealing tubs off shop shelves, to ensure their babies get fed.

Speaking to Metro, Webb said: ‘It’s expensive and there are so many barriers.

SIGN METRO’S FORMULA FOR CHANGE PETITION HERE

‘I’ve seen this in Blackpool – and myself becoming a new dad – parents asking money for formula, borrowing money for tins, as they can’t get through the month.

‘We want to make it that little bit more accessible by working with government, suppliers, supermarkets and food banks.’

As the room filled with MPs eager to pledge their support and find out more about the issues surrounding the accesibility of formula, some spoke about how necessary the campaign was, while others admitted they were shocked by the lack of clear guidance on offer for retailers and foodbanks.

Some were also keen to share their own experiences, such as Josh Newbury, the Labour MP for Cannock Chase, Staffordshire.

He recently fostered Ryland, a five-month-old boy, and told Metro: ‘I put three boxes of infant formula into my trolley on Saturday and it was nearly £40.

‘That made me really think: “How could somebody on a lower income sustain this?” As your baby gets older, they’re drinking more and more.

‘Even compared to when my daughter was a baby five years ago, a lot of the cheaper supermarket own-brands have disappeared off the shelves. The milk we use has gone up £4 a box.

‘I just want to make sure that something as basic as this is affordable for parents, there’s choice and prices aren’t going up, and up, and up.’

Meanwhile, Lizzi Collinge, a Labour MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, attended the drop-in as she feels current infant feeding policies are ‘not helpful for mums or babies’.

‘Barriers to accessible formula put vulnerable babies in danger,’ she said.

‘As someone who is fully formula-fed and combined fed two children,’ she said, meaning she breastfed and used infant milk, ‘it’s clear how expensive formula is.

‘Formula feeding is often not a choice. It’s something that absolutely necessary for a baby to thrive and the cost of formula and the restrictions on its sale are really unhelpful.’

Webb added that as well as supporting mothers who breastfeed we needed to take away the stigma surrounding formula too. ‘My son wouldn’t take to breastfeed so we had to take to formula,’ he said. ‘That’s becoming more and more common.’

Another attendee was Adam Thilthorpe, co-founder of the AI health start-up Change-Box.net. He told Metro how his team are working to make formula milk, nappies and other essentials more easily available.

His team’s focus is ensuring ‘food deserts’ – such as rural areas that don’t even have a supermarket – are fully stocked. Their aim is to encourage companies like multi banks to donate essentials to small convenience stores that are lifelines in such communities to help remove any stigma.

‘We want to make sure that no one in the queue knows you just benefitted from donations,’ he said.

Clare Murphy, the chief executive officer of Feed, added that formula prices are rising ‘faster’ than other essentials during the cost of living crisis.

So much so that the NHS’s Healthy Start Scheme, a free voucher for people on low-wage or social welfare to pay for baby essentials, no longer covers the cost of formula milk.

‘There are some quite simple things that can slightly alleviate the pressure, one of which is changing or reinterpreting the regulations to allow the use of loyalty points and vouchers that many families collect and spend on their food shops which can make a difference,’ Murphy said.

She added that the current guidelines that decide how baby formula in Britain can be made, promoted and sold are ‘confusing’.

Murphy stressed that the regulations treat baby formula like tobacco and lottery tickets, so can’t be purchased using supermarket loyalty points.

‘We seem to have ended up in a situation where a normal product that most families will need in the first months of the baby’s life has been made unaffordable and inaccessible,’ she said.

Since Formula for Change was launched by Metro with Feed in 2023, our petition has netted over 106,000 signatures, while Katherine Ryan, LadBaby and Health Secretary Wes Streeting are among the figures championing it.

An change is being made. Just last month the Department of Health and Social Care officially confirmed via Chris Webb that food and baby banks can supply cash-strapped families with formula tubs.

Webb told Metro that Health Minister Andrew Gwynne will hold a roundtable next month to discuss changing the regulations.

‘Organisations, charities and baby formula suppliers will look at how we can review the current regulations and make it easier for families to get access,’ he said.

‘This is at the minister’s forefront of what he’s looking at to help make healthier babies.’

In the weeks ahead, Webb said he intends to head to Number 10 with Metro and Feed to hand in the Formula For Change petition calling for clearer guidelines and better support. ‘It’s to keep that conversation going,’ he explained.

James Frith, Labour MP for Bury North, a region about eight miles north of Manchester, said he hopes for the same.

‘I’m a dad of four. I know how important those first thousand days are,’ he said . ‘Good nutrition is absolutely vital to those early years of development and their chances of success later in life.’

‘I can’t imagine any MP that would disagree with the argument at the heart of this,’ added Frith.

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