Food, Diet and Obesity Committee Report

Lord McColl of Dulwich Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for introducing this debate, chairing the committee so expertly and allowing me to attend all its meetings. I say at the beginning that, as far as controversy is concerned, I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, in his views about ultra-processed foods: there is no scientific evidence that they are the cause of the obesity epidemic, and it is strange that his advice is not accepted.

The next controversy was with Dr Chris van Tulleken, who addressed the committee and told it that the personal responsibility argument is

“morally, economically, socially, politically and scientifically dead and buried”,

so all such policies must be removed from the table. To be fair to him, he was not around, as I was, during the successful campaign against AIDS in the 1980s and the campaign in Uganda. I was responsible for setting up hospices for people dying of AIDS in London and in Uganda. The reason why these campaigns were so successful is that they were honest. They did not wrap everything up in euphemisms. Norman Fowler was the Secretary of State for Health, and he was absolutely honest and frank. He said, “AIDS: Don’t Die of Ignorance”. You see, if you were honest with people and explained to them what was required, each individual had to take responsibility for himself or herself in taking precautions to avoid getting AIDS—and it worked. In fact, the programme in Uganda, the ABC programme, led by the Ugandan Government, brought down the incidence of AIDS from 34% to 4%. That is hard data and cannot be argued against. Perhaps we should be saying, “Don’t die of complacency, don’t die of obesity”. I have been saying this for the last 20 years.

There is only one cause of obesity: eating too much. The 40 million overweight people in this country are not like French geese subjected to gavage. They are not force-fed to produce pâté de foie gras. French geese should have a right to complain against their masters for force-feeding them, but obese people have no such luxury to engage in the blame game. It is time to recognise that we have to ignore many of the excuses that are put forward to persuade obese people that it is not their fault—that it is inevitable that they are obese because they live in an “obesogenic” society, as a professor at Oxford says. We really ought to understand that the total cost to the NHS, which I think has been mentioned, is not £5 billion but £98 billion. That is what is wrecking the National Health Service. If we want to save it, it is no good reforming it yet again; it has been reformed about eight times in the last few years, and none of those have worked. But if we start reducing demand, in getting people to slim down, that will work. The obesity epidemic is such a disaster. We have to do something about it and get people to realise their personal responsibility.

There is one cause of obesity and one cause only. There are no diseases that cause obesity. The one cause is eating too much. It is high time that that was recognised. We have to dispel the fake propaganda that people are victims of an obesogenic society, and to encourage successful methods such as fasting and calorie counting in reducing dietary intake. Of course, exercise is important for our general health but not for losing weight—it does not work very well indeed. The clarion call to the 40 million overweight people is this: save yourselves, save the NHS, save £98 billion a year, and find the way that you want to reduce your weight.