Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ashley Dalton and Naz Shah

Tuesday 24th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to help prevent ill health.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)]

The 10-year health plan announced ambitious measures to make the healthy choice the easy choice. They include tackling the obesity epidemic through mandatory healthy food sales reporting, business targets to increase the healthiness of products sold and restrictions on junk food advertising.

[Naz Shah]

In Bradford West, more than one in five children begins primary school overweight or obese. By the time they leave primary school, that figure rises to one in three children. Will the Minister set out how this Government’s world-leading new ban on junk food advertising will help parents to give every child the best and healthiest start in life?

[Ashley Dalton]

I thank my hon. Friend for outlining the very real crisis of childhood obesity. It is a problem that robs children of the best possible start in life and sets them up for a whole lifetime of health problems. It is why this Government have come down hard and delivered our commitment to restrict advertisements for junk food on TV and online. That action will remove around 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets every single year.