Obesity: Food and Diet
Bayo Alaba Excerpts(3 days, 2 hours ago)
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Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this important and informative debate. I will start with some statistics. Over the last seven years, Southend has seen one of the highest increases in England in the number of children living with obesity, with 22.7% of five-years-olds starting school with a weight classified as overweight or obese. That rises to 33.8% by the time they leave primary school.
The chief medical officer Professor Sir Chris Whitty found in his 2021 annual report that coastal communities were some of the worst affected by rising childhood obesity rates, along with many other preventable health harms. It is not fair that where someone lives can affect their family’s and their children’s health outcomes.
In Southend, we have seen not only that increase in obesity but the closing of sports facilities. I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone) with regard to physical activity and exercise, which is also a vital component in the debate. I recently visited Hamstel infant and junior schools, whose swimming pool has unfortunately been closed down. In that scenario, students who predominantly come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not have access to local swimming facilities. That was yet another facility to close down, leaving children with less opportunity for physical activities. More widely, in 2021 Swim England reported that almost 2,000 swimming pools could be lost by 2030, which is simply unacceptable. The trend is not limited to swimming: since 2010, nearly 1,000 public football pitches have been lost across the UK.
Childhood obesity is a complex issue, and the closure of sports facilities is certainly not the only contributing factor to the increase. Poor diet and the cost of living crisis also play a considerable part. Poor diet is one of the biggest preventable risk factors in ill health contributing to lower life expectancy and earlier onset illness. The cost of living crisis and compounding pressures on families’ pay packets mean that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and areas do not have the option of a healthy diet. Healthy foods are twice as expensive calorie for calorie as less healthy foods. That is simply not good enough. We need to improve health outcomes for children in Southend and in Rochford and create the conditions for them to thrive.
As many Members will know, the House of Lords inquiry into food, diet and obesity set recommendations that have been supported by key organisations such as the Obesity Health Alliance. In fact, over the past 30 years we have had 14 strategies to address obesity, containing almost 700 policy recommendations. In that time, obesity has doubled. This poses a major health risk for our country and a catastrophic cost to our NHS and workforce.
The vast majority of recommendations were not implemented under the last Government. The few that were implemented placed the burden on the individual and ignored the necessary structural changes. Our Labour Government have been clear in our mission on health and the NHS: to shift the narrative from ill health to prevention. We are already making changes. The advertising of unhealthy food will be banned across all media before 9 pm from October 2025. We could go one step further and put an end to the advertising of less healthy foods altogether.
Furthermore, we could introduce more stringent labelling and regulations on snacks, so that companies can no longer mislead parents with false taglines such as “one of your five a day” or “source of protein” on foods with huge amounts of sugar. Finally, we could investigate introducing a salt and sugar tax on food manufacturers, building on the success of the soft drinks levy. The Government could use that revenue to make healthier food cheaper, particularly for people living with food insecurity.
Our Labour Government are on a mission to improve living standards. To do that, we need to make changes where the previous Government failed. They include tackling obesity head-on, with better access to sports facilities, better protections around the marketing of unhealthy food and easing the pressure of the cost of living crisis.
Income Tax (Charge)
Bayo Alaba Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
This Budget represents a huge step towards restoring the vibrancy and potential of my constituency. The commitments in this Budget will support our hospital and health services, revitalise trade and hospitality, and knit the community closer together.
Over the past 14 years, our public services have been neglected and the hospitality and retail industries have been unsupported. That is why I am so proud that the Labour Government are working to fix the foundations and reform our public services at their very roots. This Budget invests £25.6 billion in the NHS over two years, which will cut waiting times by creating an extra 40,000 elective appointments a week so that the NHS will be there when we need it. I know how important this is in Southend East and Rochford, where hospital and health workers are working hard to serve their community.
The businesses, restaurants and bars that are integral to Southend East and Rochford’s local offer will be pleased by the measures announced in this Budget—as someone who has run businesses in that sector for over 24 years, I know how important it is. The Government are choosing to protect small businesses by increasing the employment allowance to £10,500 and expanding that allowance to all eligible employers. This Labour Government are making business rates fairer to protect our high streets and are permanently introducing lower rates for retail, hospitality and leisure—as many as 6,380 microbusinesses in the Southend city council area stand to benefit from those changes. These are steps that will deliver the change that our communities deserve and regenerate our local economies.
Finally, this Labour Government are increasing the national minimum wage to £12.21 per hour——an increase of 6.7%—which will serve to revitalise the hospitality and retail sectors. The Low Pay Commission estimates that 54% of all jobs paying at or below the minimum wage are in retail, hospitality, cleaning and maintenance occupations. The workers in those industries have been overlooked for too long. Labour’s Budget puts those workers back on the agenda, with more money in their pockets at the end of the month. I welcome the actions of this Labour Government to support essential services and equip our leisure and retail industries with the tools for the future.
The Budget turns a page on the last 14 years and begins to create the conditions for an area such as Southend East and Rochford to thrive.