Obesity

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord rightly alluded to the Better Health campaign, and I remind him that we did relaunch it yesterday. That went extremely well and got a lot of coverage. But there is only so much that government advertising can do; I do not think that we can advertise our way out of this problem. It is up to individuals to make their own decisions, it is up to GPs to give the support that people need and it is up to us as a society to accept that the health of the nation is important to its resilience and to its long-term health. Until those decisions are made, we struggle to make progress in this area.

[Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]]

My Lords, what works in rural Cornwall may not work in metropolitan Camden. Could the Minister tell the House whether there is a plan to require local integrated care systems to develop a local obesity prevention and treatment strategy for their population, strengthening existing services and sharing good practice across the national network?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

Yes, I am glad to be able to reassure the noble Baroness that ICSs will be instructed to take obesity as part of one of their primary framework objectives. In fact, that is a very good example of how ICSs will make a big impact on complex issues such as obesity and how that impact will be felt in far-flung communities such as those in Cornwall.