Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

2. What discussions she has had with ministerial colleagues on the effect of dieting on the health of women.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

I meet ministerial colleagues regularly to discuss a range of issues, including health, dieting and the body confidence campaign. Being at a healthy weight is important in helping people to reduce the risk of serious illness. The Government are committed to helping people to reach and stay at a healthy weight.

[Jo Swinson]

It is January, which means that adverts in women’s magazines everywhere are promoting diets and miracle weight-loss plans. The inquiry of the all-party parliamentary group on body image has heard evidence from the Royal College of Psychiatrists that not only do 90% of diets not work, but that for people who are susceptible, dieting can trigger eating disorders. How can the Government successfully promote fitness and healthy eating patterns against the onslaught of bad advice to skip meals, cut out food groups and obsess over every calorie, with all the negative health consequences that that creates?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that she and the APPG do on body image issues. It is important that the link between dieting and eating disorders is looked at closely. She rightly mentions that 95% of diets fail. As a Government, we believe that a diet is not just for Christmas but must be about one’s lifestyle. The best advice is common sense. It is to eat healthily all year round and take appropriate amounts of exercise.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Dieting and calorie counting can be positive as well as negative, as has just been pointed out. A positive development might be to have calorific information on alcoholic drinks as well as the unit count. Have the Government given any consideration to that?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point and I will take it up with the appropriate Minister.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Given the beneficial effects of breastfeeding on weight loss and on the baby’s health, and that Britain has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates of any country in Europe, what work is the Minister doing with the Department of Health to encourage women to breastfeed their babies?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The issues around breastfeeding are very sensitive. We have to find the balance between raising the benefits that breastfeeding can bring and not making people who feel that they cannot breastfeed feel bad about it. The hon. Gentleman raises two important points about weight loss and what is best for babies. It also has benefits in relation to allergies. I work with the Department of Health on all these issues.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It has long been a Liberal Democrat policy to make personal, social and health education compulsory in schools. That could include body image classes. Does the Minister regret that the coalition Government have set their face against making PSHE compulsory?

[Lynne Featherstone]

The Government are reviewing PSHE. The hon. Lady is absolutely right about body confidence. The Media Smart programme for schools is voluntary, but it has had the greatest ever number of downloads of any such programme. We should also use the big society and have other groups going into schools. Not everything should rest on teachers’ shoulders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

5. What assessment she has made of the effect of Government policies on efforts to tackle domestic violence against women.

[The Minister for Equalities (Lynne Featherstone)]

A progress review of the Government’s approach to tackling violence against women and girls was published on 25 November. It highlighted many of our achievements to date in relation to domestic violence, including, among many other measures: providing £3.3 million funding for multi-agency risk assessment conference co-ordinator and independent domestic violence adviser posts locally until 2015; introducing a requirement for multi-agency reviews after every domestic homicide; and piloting domestic violence protection orders in three police force areas.

[Mr McKenzie]

I recently visited a Women’s Aid project in my constituency. Is the Minister aware of the crisis in accommodation for women fleeing violence? Such projects have been left with little choice but to advise vulnerable women on how to minimise harm if they are forced to sleep on the streets.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I understand, with all that is going on in this age of austerity—there is not enough money to fund everything—that there are issues around some of the funding for women, but the Home Secretary and I could not have been clearer about the priority that the Government place on tackling violence against women, by ring-fencing £28 million of funding and by sending a loud and clear message to local authorities that they should not look for soft targets.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that it is important to give priority for council housing to women who have suffered domestic violence? Will she work with the Housing and Local Government Minister to encourage councils to give them top priority?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend, who raises an important point. If there is nowhere for a victim of domestic violence to go, post coming out of a refuge, we are not solving any of the problems. I am happy to do as she suggests.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Safe, secure accommodation is essential, as the Minister knows, for women fleeing domestic violence, and she must be aware of the concerns of providers of refuge accommodation such as Women’s Aid, which has talked of chaos in commissioning and its anxiety about the removal of the ring fence on the Supporting People grant, which means that refuges face cuts in funding of as much as 50%. Does she share my concern that the Government’s proposal to remove the support element from housing benefit payments and transfer the money to local authorities without protecting it for housing support is another nail in the coffin of a nationally funded network of refuges for women?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I would point out to the hon. Lady that the ring fence around the Supporting People budget was removed under the Labour Government, and that that £6.5 million budget has been cut by only 1%. If local authorities are not using it appropriately, I suggests she takes the matter up with them.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

What action are the coalition Government taking to help victims of domestic violence who come here on spousal visas? They desperately need help but have no money and no recourse to public funds.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. People who come on spousal visas—they are generally but not exclusively women—are left in a very vulnerable situation when they find themselves victims of domestic violence. The previous Government began the Sojourner project, which provided some breathing space for those women. We have continued and extended that project pending a long-term solution, which we are working on with the Department for Work and Pensions—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, are you coughing at me? [Laughter.] I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

[Mr Speaker]

I have never coughed at the hon. Lady, and I was not intending to start, but I am grateful for her compassionate concern for the state of my health. If she had wanted to finish the answer, she could, but she doesn’t, so she won’t.