Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy Debate

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Department: Department of Health and Social Care

Dietary Advice and Childhood Obesity Strategy

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts
Monday 23rd May 2016

(7 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kelvin Hopkins Portrait Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
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May I first declare that I am a believer in the nanny state? It was the nanny state that stopped children being sent down mines and up chimneys, and much more besides. May I applaud my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) for raising this very important issue? Last week when I had a peanut butter sandwich, it tasted rather sweet, so I checked the jar and found it had sugar in it. May I suggest to the Minister that we go well beyond a sugar tax and have some means of stopping sugar being put wrongly into foodstuffs?

Alistair Burt Portrait Alistair Burt
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We now have a sugar app, which means that the next time the hon. Gentleman goes down to the supermarket and wants to check how much sugar there is in a product, he can use the app by placing a device against the barcode. My family have used it and they have found, to their astonishment, how much sugar is contained in products that they never expected to contain it. This is not only about making sure that there is a reduction in sugar content where that is possible and appropriate, but about alerting consumers to the amount of sugar, which is really important. I shall ensure that the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, gives him details about the app he can use.