Baroness Walmsley
Main Page: Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Walmsley's debates with the Department for Education
(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that nearly 1,600 children in England and Wales are suffering from type 2 diabetes—a disease that causes inflammation throughout the body and, if not treated properly, can cause kidney failure, heart attacks and other diseases in later life—and that a high proportion of these children come from the lower demographic groups? Can the Minister really say, hand on heart, that the Government are doing everything they can to address the shortcomings of the diets of poorer children in our society?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The Government have made a great deal of progress in this area, which is not to say that there is not more to do. The noble Baroness will be familiar with the so-called sugar tax, which has led to a decrease of almost half in the amount of sugar in soft drinks between 2015 and 2020. Most recently, we introduced regulations restricting the location of products with high fat, salt and sugar in supermarkets, which is critical in making sure that children do not access those foods.