Childhood Obesity

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Westminster Hall

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) on securing this crucial debate, and my other hon. Friends who have spoken.

I was in the Mall on Friday for what everybody agreed was a most wonderful royal wedding. However, my heart sank when I saw a very large, hugely overweight man hanging on to a railing for dear life and panting. He may have had a problem caused by steroids or something else, but it is most likely that he was obese. I thought how unhappy he must be with his life—my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) touched on the issue of happiness. One point we must get across to people who are obese is that they can be much happier if they overcome obesity.

My hon. Friends have made many points, but I want to touch on three issues. First, I want to look at the Change4Life programme and the changes that the Minister proposes to make. Secondly, I would like to say something about the impact of high-energy drinks that contain a lot of sugar and caffeine. Thirdly, I will speak about sizes of portions and clothes.

I will start by referring to the October 2007 Government report, “Tackling Obesities: Future Choices”, on what the human body is designed to do. It points out, with classic understatement, that our biological system is,

“not well adapted to a changing world, where the pace of technological progress and lifestyle change has outstripped that of human evolution.”

Many years ago in this Chamber—the old Grand Committee Room—I listened to a debate one evening, instigated by the food and health forum, that I have never forgotten. The speaker was a professor of nutrition and he said, “Look, in a nutshell, if you want to stay healthy, remember that we have not really evolved since the stone age; we are essentially stone-age people in the 20th century.” He said that if we want to be healthy, we should live like stone-age people. We should walk most of the time and run occasionally, eat berries and vegetables in season, catch fish when possible, and eat meat rarely. I was struck by that speech. Generally, our health problems arrive when we deviate from that simple model.

Last week, The Daily Telegraph looked at the problem of obesity as it affects parents. It pointed out that British men are among the fattest in Europe and that according to the World Health Organisation, we do less exercise as a nation than almost every other country in the world. In another article, I read that the World Health Organisation believes that in the regions of Europe, the east Mediterranean and the Americas, over 50% of women are overweight.

We have an enormous problem. All my hon. Friends have drawn on statistics. We tend to follow what happens in America, so we should be aware of what is happening in that country, where the problem is greater—obesity rates are 36% among women and 32% among men. The number of obese men in England has doubled since 1993, and the number of obese women has risen by half.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) referred eloquently to issues in his constituency, but in my constituency we do not have the problems that affect many others. For example, the prevalence of obesity among reception-age children in the east midlands is just under 10%, and for year six children by region it is 18%. In Hinckley and Bosworth, the figures are smaller at just over 7% and under 16% respectively. Those are still enormous figures, however, and we must put that in the context of my original point about happiness. How many of those children are very unhappy with their lives?

The Minister inherited the Change4Life programme from the previous Government and I hope she will say a few things about the changes that she proposes to make. As I understand it, the funding for that programme is to change and she will be looking for contributions from the food industry. That may be a good thing, but I would like reassurances that the food industry will not be driving the agenda. I know that she has already said that we will not legislate further to bring in a range of new standards, but I think the quid pro quo is that we must know that the food industry will be very supportive of measures that do exactly what has been suggested and ensure that we see a reduction in sugar. There is far too much sugar in cereal, for example. I suggest to my hon. Friends that if they really want a cereal that is sugar-free, they should make it themselves; it is not difficult. I look to the Minister for support on that issue.

My next point relates to high-energy drinks. I have not heard a word about high-energy drinks this morning; I think that that is a forgotten area. Children and adults are consuming drinks that have two or three times the recommended caffeine level and a very high sugar content. If people have far too much caffeine, they get behavioural disorders. It is very bad for them. It increases their heart rate, and there have been instances of children going to hospital in such circumstances. It is extremely dangerous.

I recommend that the Minister look at the research conducted by Johns Hopkins university, which concluded that energy drinks should be labelled with highly visible health warnings aimed at young people. I will not quote from the study extensively, but it based its recommendations on research that discovered that certain drinks contained as much as 14 times more caffeine than the average can of cola. That is the same as drinking seven cups of coffee.

While we are on the subject of coffee, is it not extraordinary that we are now being invited by coffee shops to drink half-pint mugs of coffee? Have we taken leave of our senses? Have we all gone mad? If I stop for a cup of coffee with a friend, I often order the smallest cup of coffee and split it into two mugs because it is too much. In the 19th century, coffee cups were tiny. That is another issue that we must address.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Drinking half a pint of coffee would be one thing. Is not the problem with coffee shops that often people are also drinking coffee with cream, sugar and additives? Sometimes with these half-pint cups of coffee, people would get fewer calories in an ordinary meal.

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[David Tredinnick]

I absolutely agree. What is going on in coffee shops is a debate in itself, but coffee used to be taken in very small quantities. It was not intended that we should have so much caffeine in our system.

My last point is about size—the size of portions and the sizing of clothes. I was very touched when, on the day we came back from the recess last week, one of our colleagues came into the Chamber and my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow and one or two others were saying how slim and how wonderful he looked—he had better be nameless because I did not talk to him about the fact that I might refer to him in this debate. He said, “Yes, I’ve lost a lot of weight,” and I think that it was my hon. Friend who said, “How did you do it?” He said, “I’m eating half as much food as I used to eat.” He is eating half as much food—it is not rocket science.

How about suggesting to people that sometimes they do not need to eat as much food? For those who have a faith, may I remind them that gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins? This wonderful stone-age body that we have knows when it has had enough food. The problem is that we override the system too much. We are not taught moderation. Instead of trying to eat smaller portions, we tend to overeat and eat very large meals. We are not helped by the restaurant industry and the food industry, which are constantly trying to pile our plates higher and higher, with triple or quadruple deckers and vast portions. The same applies to children’s food. That is a problem.

On the sizes of clothes, I have some reliable research from someone well known to me. In the mid-1970s, a lady weighing 7 stone with a 24-inch waist would buy a skirt in a size 10; in 2011, the same person, whose waist has increased by three quarters of an inch, buys a size 8 or 6 because the size 10 is far too large. The industry has created a completely new range of sizes to accommodate the population. The largest size used to be size 18; it is now 20 to 22. People who are buying a particular size, thinking that they are a certain weight, are actually much larger than they think they are. That is very unsatisfactory.

Some of my hon. Friends touched on sport. Sport is fantastic; it is so important, and we have the Olympics coming to this country next year. Obese children do not play much sport. They cannot because they cannot get on the pitch—they are too big—so they miss on that wonderful opportunity. With the Olympics round the corner, surely this is the best time to take every possible measure and all steps in the Minister’s power to reduce obesity among children.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am not sure that I necessarily subscribe to the hon. Gentleman’s premise. This issue is important and it warrants the kind of attention that we are giving to it, and there is an opportunity to listen, reflect and improve the Bill because we want to ensure that we can thereby strengthen the NHS. On strengthening the NHS, I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman did not take the opportunity to refer to the £12.9 million increase in the budget for Tameside and Glossop PCT this year—something that Labour would not have offered. The truth is that we are going to strengthen the NHS through the Health and Social Care Bill, as we are strengthening it through our commitment to the priorities of the NHS.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend had any further thoughts on the effect of HealthWatch England’s representatives being included in local health and wellbeing boards? Does he think that the provisions are sufficiently robust to ensure that they have an impact on commissioning?

[Mr Lansley]

As my hon. Friend knows, we intend health and wellbeing boards to bring together HealthWatch, plus councillors, commissioning bodies and providers, as part of the process of local representation, so that we can link up NHS commissioning with public health and social care, to see how they collectively meet the joint strategic needs assessment led by the local authority.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The right hon. Gentleman should not believe what he reads in the newspapers.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

The cancer drugs fund is available only for pharmaceutical drugs, but can it be used for wider support services, such as healers, aromatherapists, those using therapeutic touch and other such practitioners?

[Mr Lansley]

We are finalising the design of the future cancer drugs fund from April, and we will publish shortly. The interim cancer drugs fund is designed to support new effective medicines, based on clinical panels’ assessments of the needs of individual patients.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that at the general election we just fought we were the party that was committed to increased resources for the national health service. We are the coalition Government who, over this Parliament, will increase resources for the national health service by £10.7 billion, even in the face of the deficit we inherited from Labour. The hon. Gentleman’s party’s response was to tell us that we should cut the NHS, and we are not going to do it.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State please explain why it is taking so long for him to come to the House about the regulation of herbal medicine? He has to do that before April to comply with European legislation. What is the hold-up?

[Anne Milton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and I know that he has a keen interest in this subject. I share his frustration that the previous Government spent a long time not doing anything about it. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has identified the possibility of creating a national regulatory scheme, allowing authorised herbal practitioners to continue to commission unlicensed manufactured herbal medicines after 30 April. We are in discussions with the devolved Administrations, the Health Professions Council and the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council about the feasibility of a statutory register. As I say, I share my hon. Friend’s frustration but we will make proposals shortly.

Swine Flu

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman’s question is based on a false premise, because the level of vaccine uptake this year among over-65s is 70% and among under-65s is 45.5%, which is comparable to previous years. He did not refer to this, but because we made savings we provided the NHS with considerable additional resources in the last three months of the year precisely to manage winter pressures and ensure that beds in hospitals are available.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the increase in the critical case capacity and in the number of extra corporeal membrane oxygenation—ECMO—beds from five to 22, which has made a difference. Will he also pay tribute to others who help in these situations, such as the manufacturers of homeopathic medicines and homeopathic chemists? They provide preparations that may be suitable for people, such as the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who are unable to take flu vaccines and others who choose not to do so.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. His local hospital, the Glenfield in Leicester, leads on specialised ECMO bed services. In this country, we have increased the number of ECMO beds; we have more per head of population than any of the developed health economies, including the United States. As for treatments and vaccinations, I continue to rest upon the scientific and expert advice. Indeed, I hope that patients will consult their clinicians about their treatments.

Contaminated Blood

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

What I have announced today will, of course, be funded from the Department of Health’s budget in England and the matter would be a responsibility for the devolved Administrations in relation to their budgets —from within the budgets set through the spending review.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend. I also congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Health on all the work that she has done. The statement deals with what Lord Archer called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the national health service. It has to be said that the last Labour Government could have dealt with this, but they did not.

Following the comprehensive package that he has announced, will my right hon. Friend assure us that he will take active steps to contact the families of the bereaved and that no stone will be left unturned in making sure that all those who should have payments receive them?

[Mr Lansley]

I give my hon. Friend that assurance. We will take all the steps that we possibly can, not least on behalf of the bereaved families of those who died before 29 August 2003. That anomaly, among others, ought to have been rectified long ago.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Paul Burstow]

In the not-too-distant future, we will publish the refresh of the cancer reform strategy. That will demonstrate how the Government will continue to build on past success while ensuring that we reduce and improve the survival rates for cancer. One of the real problems in this country is that we have some of the poorest survival rates for cancer. We will ensure that the networks’ expertise is incorporated into the way in which the reformed system will work.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the rally being held here in Westminster tomorrow by qualified herbalists who are coming to lobby for statutory regulation, which my right hon. Friend is obliged to provide under European law? When will he do that, please?

[Mr Lansley]

I am indeed aware of that, as my hon. Friend would expect. He will know that we are considering how we can give effect to the proper regulation of herbal practitioners and we will make an announcement shortly.

NHS Reorganisation

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

It is a very good thing that the Royal College of General Practitioners is trying to bring the skills of many GPs up to speed because this is a big job for which GPs are not trained and not equipped, and which many do not want to do.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that we had GP fundholders during the previous Conservative Government, and the doctors managed the budgets all right and increased choice for patients?

[John Healey]

The GP fundholding experiment took place in a completely different context—within an NHS that still had an area-based plan and still had bodies accountable through the Secretary of State to Parliament. In the end, however, it did not work and we stopped it.

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[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I support the Opposition’s motion in one respect: their call on the Secretary of State

“to listen to the warnings from patients’ groups, health professionals and NHS experts”.

I want to address particularly the issues affecting those in integrated health care. I speak as the chair of the integrated health care group—the old complementary medicine group—and as someone who has the honour of serving under my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) on the Health Committee. I wish to look at the regulation of herbal medicine, the possibility of complementary medicine leading to cost reductions in the health service and the choice of services.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows, we will have a problem next year with the implementation of the traditional herbal medicines directive, about which many colleagues have been approached by constituents. From April, practitioners will no longer be regulated under section 68 of the Health Act 2009, so my first plea to my right hon. Friend is to come up with a solution to this problem ahead of time—ahead of Christmas, I hope. Otherwise, from April, practitioners will be unable to prescribe the herbs they have been prescribing under the section 68 derogation. The best course of action is the Health Professions Council, because that is the only body—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I should remind the hon. Gentleman that we are not discussing the directive, amendments to the directive or herbal medicine. We are discussing the reorganisation of the health service, to which he needs to direct his points to make them relevant to the motion.

[David Tredinnick]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. What I am talking about is relevant to cost savings, choice and the use of existing practitioners. I hope that my right hon. Friend will deal with that issue; otherwise it will cause him major problems next year. I will now move on.

The other, related problem is that, under this arrangement, unless my right hon. Friend acts, we will lose many available products from the shelves, which will affect health service costs and what practitioners can do. Yesterday, I went to Brussels to discuss the issue as it affects health service, which we are discussing, and related cost savings. I spoke to Elena Antonescu, a Member of the European Parliament, who advised me that if the health service is to continue with traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines, the Secretary of State will have to lobby Members of the European Parliament to go to the Commission to produce a report that they first proposed in 2008.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is pushing at the margins. We are not discussing European directives; we are talking about reorganisation of the health service in line with the White Paper. He must put his comments in that context.

[David Tredinnick]

I am most grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your help. I have made my point about Europe having to be involved.

I also want to comment on the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) and others about cancer care. Cancer patients can be much helped by integrated health care practitioners. I could cite many different hospitals, but I shall mention just one—Royal Surrey County hospital, which is a national health care award-winning hospital. It includes St Luke’s cancer centre, which offers a wide range of complementary therapies in support of the health service. I want to see such choice widened. If herbal and nutritional medicines are used, that will reduce the costs of the health service referred to in the motion. Many institutions abroad, such as Australia’s National Institute of Complementary Medicine, have shown Governments the way and enabled them to restructure services and provide cost savings.

With those remarks, I very much hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State looks with care at what I have said about these benefits.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman, who is a very experienced Member of this House, has been pretty close to not being in order. I take it that he has now resumed his seat, and I will move on to the next contribution.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

It in no way undermines the role of NICE, which continues to play a very important role in giving advice to the NHS on the relative clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of drugs. However, there are many circumstances at the moment whereby patients are not getting access to medicines. NICE, through its thresholds, is setting limitations on access to new cancer medicines. The hon. Lady should know, because the research was commissioned under her Government, that we need to look at international variations in drug use across health economies. Her Government did not publish that information; we have published it. It demonstrates that in this country we have relatively poor access to new cancer medicines, often before the point at which NICE has undertaken a full cost-effectiveness appraisal. We are going to ensure that patients in this country do not lose out as a consequence of those delays.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

When considering the drugs fund, will the Secretary of State bear it in mind that many patients who have had chemotherapy find relief from using herbal medicine and acupuncture? When will he come forward with proposals to interface with next year’s European directive so that herbal and acupuncture practitioners can conform to the law?

[Mr Speaker]

I know that the Secretary of State’s response will relate to the cancer drugs fund.

NHS White Paper

David Tredinnick Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry, but when the right hon. Lady was a Minister, she should have talked to more GPs. Overwhelmingly, they would have told her that they do not feel that the PCTs listen to them. They feel that the PCTs tell them what to do and get in the way. We are going to empower GPs to deliver services for their patients.

[David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)]

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. If he is going to get more choice for patients in treatment options, he will have to expand integrated health care so that herbal medicine, acupuncture, back treatments and homeopathy are more widely available across the country. Will he look at the American model of the consortium of 44 academies that has been considering integrated health care? Can he reassure me that his NHS commissioning board will not block options for integrated health care across the country?

[Mr Lansley]

The job of the NHS commissioning board will be to inform GP-led commissioning through scientific evidence, clinical evidence and guidelines, but it will be for GPs themselves, managing their budgets, to enable patients to exercise greater choice. The working out of what that choice looks like should not be dictated by politicians, but should be determined by patients and their clinical advisers.