Children: Obesity

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. In fact, the responsibility deal has led to a number of very important gains and benefits, not least from food companies: food retailers as well as food manufacturers. Calorie labelling, for example, has expanded rapidly in out-of-home settings; we now have labelling in around 9,000 outlets across the country, which is to be welcomed. As my noble friend said, 31 companies, some of them household names, have signed up to the responsibility deal calorie reduction pledge. However, this is an area that we continue to work on, and I think my noble friend’s comments are well placed.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that in Wales the figures for childhood obesity in those aged between 2 and 15 are three percentage points worse than those in England? As responsibility for some aspects of these matters is devolved and for others is not, can his department take up with the Government of Wales in Cardiff how a coherent plan can be undertaken to tackle this?