Ultra-processed Foods
Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness has made her point well. When the pandemic began, the national food strategy team were investigating the health risks associated with a diet heavy in ultra-processed foods. The team is in the process of restarting its work and will return to the question of ultra-processed foods in its final report, which it currently plans to publish over the winter.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has demonstrated that there is a bigger killer on the block than Covid, and that is ultra-processed foods. Covid has increased the focus on the need to reduce obesity and diabetes and to promote healthy eating, but we have run out of road on the kind of voluntary approaches that the Minister has just described. Will the Government now regulate for the rapid reformulations of ultra-processed foods? The responsible supermarkets want a regulated level playing field so that they can get on with helping us all avoid what is now the biggest cause of premature deaths: the consumption of ultra-processed foods.
Lord Bethell [V]
The noble Baroness is entirely right to say that Covid has focused our minds on obesity and the role of diet. However, voluntary approaches are necessary. We have to take people, industry and government with us. That is the core of our approach and it will remain our approach.
Covid-19: Track and Trace System
Baroness Young of Old Scone Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, the current low level of prevalence of the virus means that the pressure on automated tracing devices such as the app is less heavy than it would be under other circumstances. The biosecurity centre is already making a massive difference to co-ordinating our local response to the disease. We have made terrific progress so far and our management of lockdown measures will reflect that fact.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]
Statistics on the first full week of operation show that less than 58% of the contacts of confirmed symptomatic cases are traced and say that they will self-isolate—it is difficult to know whether they do so. “Test and trace” tracks only contacts of symptomatic cases, and the ONS infection study shows that only one-third of total new infections are symptomatic. Will the Minister admit that “test and trace” is resulting in the isolation of an ineffectively small proportion of the contacts of all new cases and will not prevent a second wave of the disease?
Lord Bethell [V]
My Lords, last week’s figures suggest that 67% of people who tested positive for coronavirus were reached by our contact tracers. This figure is rising every week. The epidemiological logic is that a system such as “test and trace” will never be 100% ubiquitous or track everyone who carries the disease—asymptomatic infection is a part of this terrible disease. However, it can have a profound effect on its spread and break the chain of transmission. That is why we have invested in this infrastructure and why we appealed to the British people to comply with the isolation protocols.