Exercise Pegasus 2025

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble and gallant Lord makes an incredibly important point about making sure that every part of our society is involved and prepared for whatever crisis may come before us. There is no more important role for this Government than keeping our people safe, by ensuring that we have a strong Armed Forces and that our public services can cope with these moments. The Chief of the Defence Staff was clear in his evidence to the HCDC that the UK national defence plan will be developed across 2026, in line with our NATO commitments at home and abroad.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Covid epidemic was made much worse by obesity? As two-thirds of British people are obese or overweight and half our children are obese, what are the Government doing to reduce that incidence and reduce the mortality in any future epidemics?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I was hoping I looked a bit skinny today, but maybe not.

The noble Lord raises an important point about how we ensure that the general public are as well as they can be, given that we do not know what the next threat may be and how it will touch society. That is why this Government launched their 10-year health plan, which includes how we engage with those who have health inequalities and wider inequalities, to ensure that every member of the general public is best placed to deal with the threat.