King’s Speech

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I extend a warm welcome to my noble friend Lady Smith and congratulate her on a great maiden speech. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Merron on her appointment, and wish the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, a long and happy retirement and thank her for her services and companionship.

On the Opposition Front Bench, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for his kindness in dealing with the topics I raised with him. In particular, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her help. We tried to get the quality of children’s school meals changed. We had private conversations, but we did not quite make it. And wow, now we have change—we hope. We have a different Government, and I am hoping that some of the issues raised today will see change actually taking place.

I have come up as 50th in the speaking order, so I have torn up my speech. The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, covered much of my ground. I declare an interest as a member of the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. She said much of what I was intending to say. There is one topic, which is a bit different, that I wish to draw to the House’s attention and in particular to the attention of my colleague the Minister, to see if I can persuade her fairly quickly to take action.

As the Minister knows, I have been concerned for a long time about sugar, obesity and children. I have been doing quite a lot of work privately on sugar and how we might seek to engage those in the industry that produces our food and drinks. Many of them are demonised for what they do; they are making profits and producing, in effect, rubbish and poison, and they are harming us. But they will continue to produce that food and those drinks. We need to engage—like it or not—with people who do things we do not like. Within those groups, there are people who might have a good heart, and who see that change is needed, that we now have a new government, and are perhaps willing to start exploring whether we can have a different approach.

I tried to persuade the previous Government that we should look at alternatives to sugar and the reformulation of food, and that we should look at more fibre going into food. Their view was that it should be left to the private sector—to industry—to initiate change. Well, the changes have not come. I have been talking to a number of people. I have been in correspondence with companies such as Marks & Spencer. I met Tate and Lyle yesterday, which I met previously to talk about these issues. If we are prepared to invite them in, we might start to get discussions around the table that might lead to a different approach to the previous one.

This country has been falling behind. If you look at what Europe has been doing and the conversations that have taken place with food and drink manufacturers, there has been much more co-operation than we have been experiencing here. They are looking to change legislation and to effect moves that will lead to better quality food. Similar changes are taking place in the United States, which has a great problem with obesity.

I am hoping I might be able to persuade the new Minister for public health and our new Minister here to have a conversation with me about the opportunities for change, which I sense is around. A group of manufacturers is happy to come in and start a conversation. This might lead, with good will on both sides, to getting industry itself to reformulate. Perhaps the companies will need incentives, such as subsidies, rather than simply talking about taxing them. This may be a way they can get involved, so we can truly start to deliver on the big change we need to reduce the growth of obesity in our society.