WHO technical officer, Laurence Grummer-Strawn, told Sky News: “It is shocking to be seeing a high income country like the UK facing these kinds of problems where mothers can’t afford to feed their babies.”
When asked if it amounted to exploitation, Mr Grummer-Strawn said: “Yes, I think we can say that when you see that these prices are being driven down to the consumers and having to pay extremely high prices.
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“They’re in a very vulnerable situation, that they have infants that have to be fed and there aren’t many alternatives out there for them and there aren’t really other companies they can turn to.
“You’re exploiting them to increase the profits of these companies, and they have huge profit margins.”
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0:46
‘Are families being exploited? Yes’
Speaking about solutions, Mr Grummer-Strawn explained: “We really need government action to address either on the price end or in ways to help those families directly.”
“Lowering the prices can help these families, but it needs to be in a sustainable way,” he added.
“We have to have government action. To be setting up a situation where people are dependent on these baby banks and food banks to be providing this, that’s not a sustainable way for families to get what they need.”
Image: Baby formula prices have surged
Baby banks and food banks across the UK have reported a surge in families in need of help – often parents who are in work but are still struggling to afford formula milk and other essentials.
Many of the charities have said they are worried the workload is unsustainable.
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2:04
Open baby formula sold on Facebook
Image: WHO technical officer, Laurence Grummer-Strawn, speaks to Sky News’ national correspondent, Tom Parmenter
Mr Grummer-Strawn added: “I think that what we’re seeing here is largely companies taking advantage of opportunities that other things are getting more expensive, so let’s make ours more expensive as well.
“Our concern is that they’re out to maximise their profits.
“And from a business perspective, and their shareholders, maybe that’s what their shareholders want. They want the highest profit.
“We’re certainly trying to find ways to reach out to investors and say, ‘you know, where’s the ethics in this?’, and try to get investors to think about investing in an ethical way and therefore either don’t invest it in these companies, or choose the companies that are making the most ethical decisions and tell them about the harms of the way that these products are being marketed, the way the prices are being manipulated.”
Mr Grummer-Strawn added: “At the heart of this are families simply trying to keep their babies fed when, for whatever reason, their child relies on bottle feeding.
“We really want to make sure we’re not making mothers feel guilty. This is not their fault.”
The problem is, he added, “that the government hasn’t stepped up and supported them in ways that they need to”.
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While most of the main manufacturers did not respond directly when Sky News put WHO’s comments to them, they have all told us higher production costs are the reason for the price rises.
Danone, which makes the Aptamil and Cow & Gate brands, did respond to say it is facing “unprecedented increases in the cost of ingredients, manufacturing, storage and transport”.
A spokesperson said: “Where possible we have always tried to absorb as many of these cost increases as possible.”
Danone added that it does try to help parents but added: “Ultimately, individual retailers set the selling price in their stores for all products.”
Westminster officials have consistently told Sky News that the government is helping with the cost of living but did not respond to WHO’s concerns.
Trade talks between the UK and the United States are “moving in a very positive way”, according to the White House.
President Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke about the likelihood of the long-discussed agreement during a press briefing.
In Westminster, there are hopes such a deal could soften the impact of the Trump tariffs announced last month.
Leavitt told reporters: “As for the trade talks, I understand they are moving in a very positive way with the UK.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the president or our trade team in how those negotiations are going, but I have heard they have been very positive and productive with the UK.”
She said Mr Trump always “speaks incredibly highly” of the UK.
“He has a good relationship with your prime minister, though they disagree on domestic policy issues,” she added.
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“I have witnessed the camaraderie between them first hand in the Oval Office, and there is a deep mutual respect between our two countries that certainly the president upholds.”
Image: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she was positive about a deal. Pic: AP
He was careful to not get ahead of developments, however, saying: “I think an agreement is possible – I don’t think it’s certain, and I don’t want to say it’s certain, but I think it’s possible.”
He went on to say the government wanted an “agreement in the UK’s interests” and not a “hasty deal”, amid fears from critics that Number 10 could acquiesce a deal that lowers food standards, for example, or changes certain taxes in a bid to persuade Donald Trump to lower some of the tariffs that have been placed on British goods.
Mr McFadden’s tone was more cautious than Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ last week.
She had been in the US and, speaking to Sky News business and economics correspondent Gurpreet Narwan, the chancellor said she was “confident” a deal could be done.
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‘We’re confident’, says Reeves
But she sought to play down fears that UK standards could be watered down, both on food and online safety.
“On food standards, we’ve always been really clear that we’re not going to be watering down standards in the UK and similarly, we’ve just passed the Online Safety Act and the safety, particularly of our children, is non-negotiable for the British government,” Ms Reeves said.
The government is being urged to end the “absolute scandal” of new homes being built without solar panels.
Doing so would cut both household bills and greenhouse gases that cause climate change, the Local Government Association (LGA) said in a new report.
Just four in 10 new homes in England come with solar power, according to separate figures from the industry body Solar Energy UK.
Although that is a significant three-fold increase over the space of a year, the LGA said making it mandatory would benefit bill-payers and the climate for years to come, saving people £440 per year.
The UK lags behind its neighbours in the European Union, which last year adopted new legislation demanding all new residential buildings come with solar panels from 2030.
Greenpeace UK called it an “absolute scandal that homes are built without rooftop solar panels in this day and age”.
Its campaigner, Lily Rose Ellis, said: “Given the soaring cost of electricity, our desperate need to cut planet-heating emissions, and the relatively low cost of installation to housebuilders, solar panels on all new builds should be mandatory.”
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Last year, Labour promised a “rooftop revolution” that would see millions more homes fitted with solar panels.
But they have been accused of wavering over proposals to make it mandatory, as it also courts the house-building industry to help it meet its target to build 1.5 million homes during this parliament.
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‘Tropical nights’ soar in European hotspots
The LGA wants the government to allocate them long-term funding in the upcoming spending review so they can help the country meet net zero.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said they plan to “maximise the installation of solar panels on new homes” in its long-delayed new regulations, the Future Homes Standard, due later this year.
The Home Builders Federation said “Moving forward, to meet the ever more challenging carbon reductions set by government, we will see solar on the overwhelming majority of new homes, albeit it is not appropriate in every situation.”
Electricity demand is also growing as the country switches to electric cars and heating, and builds more data centres.
All this requires more wind and solar farms, as well as 1,000 kilometres of new cables to carry the electricity from where it is generated – often a wind farm in the North Sea – to where it is used in urban areas far away.
In parts of the country like East Anglia, a row has been simmering over whether to run those cables overhead on pylons or, to protect countryside views, underground.
A hefty new report by the Institution of Engineering and Technology today weighed in on the debate, finding underground cables are on average 4.5 times more expensive than overhead lines.
Liam Hardy, head of research at thinktank Green Alliance, said: “Those costs need to go somewhere. They go on to all of our electricity bills. And of course, it’s the poorest in society for whom those bills make up a bigger percentage of their income.
He added: “What they want to see is value for money as we build out that clean infrastructure that we need.”
The government has promised communities disrupted by the new infrastructure that they should reap some of the benefits, including giving households near new pylons £2,500 off their energy bills over 10 years.
Marks & Spencer (M&S) has ordered hundreds of agency workers at its main distribution centre to stay at home as it grapples with the unfolding impact of a cyberattack on Britain’s best-known retailer.
Sky News has learnt that roughly 200 people who had been due to undertake shift work at M&S’s vast Castle Donington clothing and homewares logistics centre in the East Midlands have been told not to come in amid the escalating crisis.
Agency staff make up about 20% of Castle Donington’s workforce, according to a source close to M&S.
The retailer’s own employees who work at the site have been told to come in as usual, the source added.
“There is work for them to do,” they said.
M&S disclosed last week that it was suspending online orders as a result of the cyberattack, but has provided few other details about the nature and extent of the incident.
In its latest update to investors, the company said on Friday that its product range was “available to browse online, and our stores remain open and ready to welcome and serve customers”.
“We continue to manage the incident proactively and the M&S team – supported by leading experts – is working extremely hard to restore online operations and continue to serve customers well,” it added.
It was unclear on Monday how long the disruption to M&S’s e-commerce operations would last, although retail executives said the cyberattack was “extensive” and that it could take the company some time to fully resolve its impact.
Shares in M&S slid a further 2.4% on Monday morning, following a sharp fall last week, as investors reacted to the absence of positive news about the incident.