Health and Care Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a long debate and a lot of very interesting things have been said. I wish to concentrate on the health part of this Bill.

Most of the things that scream “health” to me are in the back of the Bill. There is the traditional subject of fluoridation. It is nice to know that that fight is still running. I would side with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, whom I welcome to the House, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, on this one. I think there are few rounds left in it, but let us see whether we can win it now.

When it comes to advertising restrictions for unhealthy foods, this should have happened a long time ago, and we have been talking about it for an awfully long time. Talking about the lobbying on this, I can remember at a party conference being entertained to dinner by somebody who tried to convince me that if you did not serve full-fat, fizzy drinks to children and offered them just water, they would, lemming like, leap on to the roads to get those drinks and be run down in their thousands. It is not a very good argument, and I did tell them that by the end of the meal.

I would like to look at something which is not really in the Bill, namely the wonder drug when it comes to health, which is exercise. The Bill does not address it very much, but the fact is that exercise in most forms is one of the things that improves your health and your resilience to infection later in life. The Bill does not do very much to encourage it. The Department of Health has the political muscle and goes into all other parts of government in certain ways—so why are we not pushing it from the Department of Health and why are we not using this Bill as a vehicle for it?

While it is a wonder drug, it also has a wonderful sugar-like quality—among all the varieties of exercise and sport, there will usually be one for you if you keep at it. However, just saying, “Go out there and do it” does not work; we know this, and it is a fact that the Government are starting to address. We have had an Agriculture Act encouraging farmers to turn bits of land into footpaths, but that will not help if we have not encouraged the rest of government to make them accessible. Are we making a car park or a bus route available? Are we getting various bits of government to talk to each other?

Sports have a small crisis coming up due to lack of activity caused by the pandemic. We are losing adult players who provide the administration and coaching for younger players. There has been a fall-off, and many sports are struggling to get them back in; my own rugby union is suffering from this. Can the Government do something coherent to help? Surely there must be a way to put something in the Bill to support exercise. This is done on a voluntary basis, and—let us face it—mainly funded by those taking part. Am I the only person here who has paid subs to join a club and paid match fees?

We need to make sure we get something in here to help us. A little encouragement and help—a little cohesion between bits of government—is required to get the best out of this opportunity. I look forward to Committee, when I will be encouraging noble Lords to put something in the Bill to make the situation easier. We are missing out the biggest assist we could have for public health: making exercise, recreation and sport easier to do. They have survived this long because people enjoy doing them. If any Government cannot cash in on that, heaven help them.