Obesity

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness very much for the recommendations of her report. Implementation is key. We have 13 workstreams, which is too much for me to go through in detail, but yesterday evening I tweeted a full list of each of them for her interest. Her point about implementation on the front line is extremely well made. I reassure her that the NHS plan makes it very clear that front-line services should provide obesity support in all the right cases.

[Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the report quite rightly encourages the Government to continue their promotion of better health and to develop an obesity prevention strategy. Twenty years ago, food was moved largely out of the Ministry of Agriculture into the Department of Health. Obesity is a question of our relationship to food. Could I encourage the Minister, in the light of changes to the way we do agriculture, to focus also on health and how, locally, the relationship between health, agriculture and the provision of food can actually be deepened?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Baroness puts her point extremely well indeed. Undoubtedly, there is a movement in the country as a whole to relate more closely the production of food in this country and the way in which healthy eating relies on good, locally produced food, and I take on board her points entirely. We very much take obesity more seriously as a result of Covid. That has given our plans a huge amount of energy, and the sponsorship of the Prime Minister has been very vocal.