Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy Debate
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Angela Rayner
Main Page: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)Department Debates - View all Angela Rayner's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy
Angela Rayner Excerpts(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Alistair Burt
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. He was not on my accumulator, so it has gone down. What he is calling for is exactly what the strategy does. It is designed to be quite wide and to take into account the possibility of other action in other places. He is absolutely correct about that.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Far from raising the nanny state, I welcome the Government’s proposals regarding sugar. There is a difficult issue not only about childhood obesity but about dentistry and the shocking evidence showing that young children today are having to go through procedures that should not be necessary. Will the Minister reissue that guidance and warning to all parents? I have a son who is 19; I know many people will be shocked to hear that. When he was 16, he had not had a fizzy pop; by the age of 18, after he had had fizzy pop from 16 to 18, he had 12 fillings. Will the Minister reiterate the dangers of fizzy pop?
Alistair Burt
Now we are back on home territory, as I am the Minister responsible for dentistry and can thoroughly concur with what the hon. Lady has said, while sharing the House’s astonishment at her news. The issue of dental clearances and young children’s teeth is a scandal. I will be speaking about this because on Friday I am going to a British Dental Association conference in Manchester and it will form part of my speech. The question is how to reach the parents and carers who have charge of their children to make sure they have access to the sort of treatments that are available, and how we work through schools, and through dentistry itself, to try to make more provision available for those who can be reached so that we deal with this terrible problem. There are some good experiments going on, not least in Nottingham; I think that the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) is partly responsible for those. The hon. Lady is right: dental issues are a serious matter to be dealt with in the overall health strategy.