Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment Committee Report

Baroness Osamor Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Osamor (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick. I also thank and welcome the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, back to the House, and congratulate him on his maiden speech.

I thank all the members of the Select Committee—I was one of them—the staff, those who gave evidence, and the chair, the noble Lord, Lord Krebs. Their excellent work, if implemented, will save lots of lives, keep us healthy and stop those who harm us through the food we eat, the environment we live in and so on. Daal, as we say in Igbo: thank you.

Most people agree that post Covid-19 will not be business as normal, but a new normal that will take on board what the report is calling for: change. People are hungry for change and they want the failures in food fixed. They do not want any harm done to them through their food.

In the London Borough of Haringey, where I live, children and young people under the age of 20 make up 20.4% of the population. Some 10.8% of children aged four to five and 23.1% of 10 to 11 year-olds in Haringey are classified as obese. Obesity in Haringey costs our NHS more than £81 million a year. Two-fifths of all the children in Haringey were living below the poverty line in the lead-up to the pandemic. Their families lack the income to buy the food they need.

Haringey’s coalition against obesity, made up of local businesses, churches and voluntary organisations, is working with Haringey Council to defeat obesity and save our young people. At the same time, it is working very hard to maintain a viable and vital local economy. Its mission was to stop takeaways targeting school pupils. Put pupils’ health first: stop the scourge of takeaways setting up on the doorsteps of our schools.

The Government could implement the outstanding proposals from the childhood obesity plan without delay. They could introduce mandatory reporting requirements for food businesses on metrics relating to sustainable and healthy diets. They could implement the outstanding proposals from the 2020 obesity strategy.

On fast food outlets, the Government’s response says:

“Councils should support the role that town centres play at the heart of their communities and promote their long-term vitality and viability. They will need to consider the interaction with the location of existing high streets, shopping parades and local shops as rigid exclusion zones could serve to undermine the viability of such long-standing retail uses.”


Where is the evidence? That is the question I ask the Minister.