Office for Health Promotion

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate makes an extremely valuable point. He is spot on; these comorbidities are related and dealing with them is complex. It is possible to exacerbate one while trying to cope with another. That is one reason why we are putting so much investment into the cross-governmental effort and why this agenda will be led by a cross-departmental ministerial board, to ensure that that kind of co-ordination happens.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as the country and the NHS emerge from crisis mode and we understand better that we were disproportionately hit because of the country’s general poor health, I urge the Minister to ensure that the Office for Health Promotion will focus on helping and supporting individuals attain a healthy lifestyle. Will he confirm that, despite what I know to be intensive lobbying, the Government will not water down proposals in the obesity strategy on, for example, advertising on social media and before the watershed and will stick to calorie labelling for alcoholic drinks, restaurants and other food outlets?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend knows, the publication of the consultation on advertising is due soon, and I look to it very much. She is entirely right that obesity, seriousness of illness and death from Covid are clearly related; this has been a wake-up call and we are stepping up to the challenge as of now.

Alcohol Harm Commission: Report 2020

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, as another of the commissioners, albeit a rather absentee one, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for instigating this debate and to all those who participated in the report either as witnesses or by taking evidence. Its findings were powerful and worrying.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and I worked together in 2011 to persuade the Government to legislate for compulsory sobriety tagging for alcohol-related crimes. The alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement, which checks offenders’ intake every 30 minutes, was piloted successfully and is now rolled out across the country. There is a clear connection between problematic alcohol consumption and crime, particularly heavy drinking or binge-drinking and violent crime. The most recent findings, from the Crime Survey for England and Wales in 2018, estimate that the proportion of violent incidents where the victim believed the offender to be under the influence of alcohol was 39%. The estimated total social and economic cost of alcohol-related harm in 2018 was £21.5 billion.

Reducing alcohol-related crime will mean fewer victims, save taxpayers’ money and have a positive impact in communities and on individuals. The legislation to introduce this solution to alcohol-related crimes took more than 10 years from conception, when Boris Johnson as Mayor of London first asked for it, to final implementation. It is a common-sense, effective, value-for-money solution. Why did it take so long?

In the time I have left, I, like others, commend the Government for their commitment to calorie labelling of alcoholic drinks as part of the obesity strategy. Polling shows that the UK public are overwhelmingly supportive of health and nutritional information on alcohol labels. It is clearly absurd that alcohol-free beer, for example, shows nutritional information but ordinary beer does not. This has to change. It is another common-sense, effective policy and I urge the Government to stick to their plans.

Body Mass Index

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 22nd April 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing the debate. BMI is used globally as a tool to assess a person’s size. It is a quick and cheap way to make estimations about an individual’s potential risk of disease or poor health. However imperfect a measure of health it is, I doubt that our discussion here, or the Select Committee’s report, will change the way doctors measure their patients and the risks to their health. The overall message of the report, however, drawing attention to the damaging nature of weight stigma and the consequences it can bring, is of course important.

Whatever measure used, what is also important is for healthcare professionals to feel able, without embarrassment, to discuss patients’ health and weight with them and, by using appropriate language, explain the long-term consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle. People need knowledge, support and encouragement, as well as a healthier environment, to make the changes necessary to improve their own lifestyles and thus take pressure off the health system.

Excess weight is one of the few modifiable factors for Covid, and our high obesity figures are one of the reasons why this country has been so badly hit. But even before the virus, it was clear that the unhealthy lifestyles so many in this country now lead were resulting in preventable diseases such as type 2 diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, some cancers, arthritis, the wearing out of hip and knee joints, and the discomfort of general ill health. Many of these conditions can be reversed by changing to a healthy diet. People need—and polling of up to 80% approval shows that they want—informed choices. The Government’s population-wide Better Health agenda is crucial to providing this. I commend them for the bold approach in the obesity strategy and urge them to stick to it.

Advertising works. If it did not then the food industry, particularly the ultra-processed and fast-food industry, would not do it. A KFC “Mighty bucket for one”, apparently the perfect meal for one person, contains 1,155 calories—over half the suggested intake. It is currently advertised everywhere. Young people are bombarded by paid influencers via social media. This needs to stop for their health’s sake.

Calorie labelling is crucial to success. Most people are unaware and polling shows that they want to know. Surveys show that 80% of adults do not know the calorie content of common drinks, which is substantial. A large glass of wine, for example, has around 200 calories, about the same as a doughnut. Unless people are supported and encouraged to move to a healthier lifestyle—and BMI is an important tool in the journey—with a better diet, a healthy weight and regular exercise, it will not just be Covid which affects them because the NHS, already under strain, will be unable to cope with the tsunami of obesity-related health issues coming down the track.

Covid-19: Update

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

What plans are being put in place for flu and Covid vaccine booster shots for the winter?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I am extremely grateful for that perceptive question. We are looking, at this very moment, at our arrangements for the autumn. For the flu vaccine, we hope to double down on our hugely successful efforts from last autumn. We hope to build on the experience of the Covid vaccine to ensure that a much wider range of people have the vaccine, so that we can deal with those who might head towards severe illness, and to stop transmission. When it comes to the Covid vaccine, we are beginning to try to understand whether a booster shot will or will not be necessary to address the threat of VOCs. As I said earlier, we are still at a stage where we do not have the full science at our disposal but, if necessary, we will roll out a vaccine booster programme in the autumn.

Covid-19 Regulations: Assisted Deaths Abroad

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

In direct answer to the noble Baroness’s question, I am not sure whether any advice was given by the DPP, because there has been no change in the law. Nothing we have done here changes in any way either the 1961 Act or the advice of the DPP. So, from that point of view, the consultation is not necessary. What we have sought to do is clarify travel guidance in a way that does not change the application of the law in the country.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Secretary of State said in the other place that this conversation on assisted dying must happen

“in an evidence-based, sensible and compassionate way.”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/11/20; col. 480.]

What efforts will the Government be making to ensure that we as a House have all the evidence available to us when this important debate next reaches the Chamber?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the debate has not been scheduled, but evidence that would be of interest includes evidence from clinicians themselves, many of whom have seen some movement in their attitudes on this subject. There is also an enormous amount of values-based and faith-based evidence from those who have a particular view on this subject. There is also the evidence of the personal choices of those approaching death themselves. There are extremely moving testimonies by individuals faced with very daunting and challenging circumstances. All of these views have relevance and value, and they should all be part of this important and delicate debate.

Covid-19: Obese and Overweight People

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of obese and overweight people dying from COVID-19.

The Question was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, Britain is overweight. For too long, obesity has been a huge cost to the health of the individual, the NHS and the economy. Covid is a wake-up call. Initial evidence suggests that obesity may be associated with a higher rate of positive tests for Covid, of hospitalisation, of admission into intensive care and, I say with great sadness, of death. The Prime Minister spoke movingly of his experience. The Government remain committed to halving childhood obesity by 2030 and we are looking at other ways of making a bigger impact on this national scourge.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Now that Covid has joined diabetes, heart disease and cancer in targeting the obese, I am glad that the Government are finally taking the obesity epidemic seriously. I encourage my noble friend to look at the measures ready now to be implemented, such as chapter 2 of the childhood obesity plan. What advice is being given to people about how to boost their immune systems to improve their general health but also to be ready to combat Covid if it comes for them?

[Lord Bethell]

My noble friend is recognised for her hard work in this area, and we all admire her championing of healthy living. The CMO’s advice is to focus on weight; that is the best way that you can prepare for winter, for the second spike, to defend yourself against Covid.

Childhood Obesity

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to combat childhood obesity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, we are delivering a world-leading plan to tackle childhood obesity. Later this summer, we will set out further action through a prevention Green Paper. In addition, the Chief Medical Officer is reviewing what more can be done to help us meet our ambition of halving childhood obesity by 2030. The review, due to report in September, will consider the approaches taken internationally, regionally and across the country, and will make a series of recommendations.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My noble friend will have seen coverage in the weekend’s press of food companies which are continuing to breach the government advice that a child should not be weaned until six months of age. They are also still failing to reformulate infant foods. For example, one portion of baby porridge contains 9.4 grams of sugar in a 24 gram portion. That of course leads to further childhood obesity, dental decay and addiction to sugar. Can my noble friend tell us what conversations and discussions the Government are having with food companies, in particular Heinz, Danone and Nestlé about reformulation and the age at which infants should be weaned?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

My noble friend is a great champion on this subject and has been an expert in it for a long period. Through the prevention Green Paper, which is due to be published this summer, we are determined to look at a range of further options to tackle obesity. We have publicly committed to taking action on infant and baby food. She will know that we are making progress on the reformulation section of the obesity strategy. However, we have further to go, and I am grateful to her for her Question on this issue.

Childhood Obesity

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right about the scale of the problem. It is worth pointing out that obesity and overweight issues cost the NHS alone £5 billion a year. There are two parts to the answer. First, the Government are making sure that plans are in place to ensure the continuity of food supply as we leave the EU, whatever the outcome of the negotiations. Secondly, there are two aspects to her key points: about £26 million is going into breakfast clubs as a result of the sugar levy, and of course free fruit and veg are available to young children in primary school.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, ITV and Veg Power are teaming up to launch a major initiative in the new year designed to appeal to children, as well as a public health initiative through ITV’s programmes. Does the Minister agree that ITV and all the other broadcasters could look at similarly imaginative ways of doing this through their programmes?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

That is an excellent suggestion. Before this debate I looked at the Veg Power campaign, the ITV campaign to promote the eating of vegetables, which looks excellent. ITV has demonstrated its commitment and certainly shows an example to other broadcasters.

Obesity

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour and a pleasure not only to have been one of the noble Baroness’s supporters last week, but to be following her now. Like many women in this country, I feel I have been following her for most of my life. The noble Baroness no doubt feels that her younger self—founding Spare Rib aged 21—would have been amazed to see herself here today. Well, I can assure her that my 16 year-old self, in awe of her many achievements, would have been far more astonished at the thought of being here with her today.

The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has had an extraordinary and wide-ranging career to date, from 1970s feminist, newspaper editor, writer, farmer to chair of the London Food Board and fearless campaigner on many other issues. As she starts yet another new career, all of these experiences will have given her skills and expertise which will significantly enhance our deliberations, not least in the fields of women’s rights, food and obesity, which we debate today, and I look forward to continuing working with her on many of these vital topics.

My noble friend Lord McColl and I share an office. Tackling obesity has become a shared passion, which we discuss regularly, and I am grateful to him for giving us the opportunity to open up our daily conversation to the Chamber today.

May I start by congratulating the Government on chapter 2 of the childhood obesity plan? As the introduction says,

“Childhood obesity is one of the biggest health problems this country faces”.


It also acknowledges that it is a social justice issue disproportionately affecting children in low-income households in the more deprived areas. The plan makes a good start, and I look forward to the consultation. But I am aware, from the challenges of chairing the Centre for Social Justice’s childhood obesity report Off the Scales last year, that keeping food campaigners and the food industry in the same room is not easy.

Last month, I stumbled across a BBC programme “The Big Crash Diet Experiment”, which took four obese people with serious weight-related health issues—fatty liver disease, heart problems and type 2 diabetes—and, under medical supervision, put them on a nine-week 800-calorie-a-day regime. The presenter, a doctor, was sceptical at the start, like many of us viewers. The programme included interviews with a number of medical experts, including former government obesity adviser Professor Susan Jebb. The results were immediate and dramatic. All four volunteers lost a considerable amount of weight—to the extent that they changed shape before our eyes. Overall, there was 20% less of Father Paul, and his diabetes went into remission; Rebecca lost nearly three stone; Yolande’s liver fat was reduced by a third. I know that ITV has also recently shown a similar programme with similar results.

Curious to know more, I got in touch with Professor Roy Taylor, from Newcastle University, who also featured in the show. He told me that the current position is exciting. It is now accepted by all UK diabetes specialists that type 2 diabetes is a potentially reversible condition. My noble friend the Minister may be aware that the national clinical director for diabetes and Simon Stevens are actively discussing how to roll this out in the NHS. Last month, the American Diabetes Association changed its official position and recognised for the first time that remission of type 2 diabetes was possible.

Changing long-established beliefs about any medical matter takes time, quite rightly. It is 10 years since the publication of the hypothesis of type 2 diabetes being a simple and reversible state, and it is seven years since publication of the proof that real people could actually achieve this. Early next month, Professor Taylor’s paper describing the mechanisms in liver and pancreas as people achieve remission of diabetes will be published in the internationally leading journal Cell Metabolism.

Noble Lords will not be surprised, however, to hear what his research participants report as the greatest barrier to success. They describe very clearly the personal and social difficulties in maintaining reasonable long-term control of food intake in the current obesogenic environment. Although around one-third report no trouble in avoiding weight regain, the majority—like most of us—have to struggle against our food-centred culture: unthinking acceptance of the notion that eating between meals is okay; unregulated fast food production with high added-sugar content and hence lack of feeling full despite significant calorie intake; and the lack of simple, clear labelling of calorie content. He also said that the argument that voluntary regulation by the food industry might help is flawed. The need for action is eloquently illustrated by the simple fact that the average man and average woman are now over 10 kilograms heavier than in 1980. At a current estimated cost to the NHS of £30 billion a year, this cannot continue. I urge my noble friend to act.

Childhood Obesity Strategy

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

It is always a pleasure to debate issues in this House. This topic is worthy of that debate because there is a huge interest in it in this House.

The noble Baroness is quite right to talk about advertising. It states in the paper:

“Consult, before the end of 2018, on introducing a 9pm watershed on TV advertising of HFSS”—


high in fat, sugar and salt—

“products and similar protection for children viewing adverts online”.

I take that to mean across the board as opposed to those solely aimed at children, which are already subject to world-leading restrictions.

The noble Baroness asked about families. Much of this is about helping families to do the right things. We know how difficult it can be when you are with young children in a shop to resist this, that or the other. You talk about protecting your teeth or eating well, but it is not always obvious what is good for you and what is bad for you. Again, in the paper there is reference to calorie labelling and going much further in terms of restaurants and store promotions. The noble Baroness and her party are always keen to make sure that we can get the most out of Brexit, and going further than the European Union will allow us with food labelling and simple nutrition information is just one of the many opportunities we will enjoy after 2019.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend may be aware that I chaired a commission for the Centre for Social Justice last year, so I welcome the acknowledgement that this issue particularly affects children in the most deprived areas. Can my noble friend give more clarity about the consultation and when it will end? Although I have not read every word in it yet, can he also say whether the Government will look at the “eatwell plate”, which is carb heavy at the moment? I am not sure whether that advice is covered in the paper.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I thank my noble friend for her questions. I salute the work she has done and the leadership she has shown on this issue. As to the content of the consultations, that will depend on when they are launched but it refers in the paper to consulting before the end of 2018 on a number of issues, so that will go through the normal process, I suppose, of a three-month consultation.

I shall look at the issue of the “eatwell plate”. It is worth pointing out that, under the “Schools” heading, there is a desire to update school food standards, reduce sugar consumption, strengthen nutrition standards and the government buying standards for food and catering services. So there is a desire to look at the official guidance that goes out and to make sure that it reflects the best science and enables any institution that is looking after children, families, schools, adults and others to give the best possible nutritional food that they can.