Diets: Fat
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, for this debate. I pay tribute to his long and consistent work in this area. He is experienced in a whole range of different aspects of this, having been a surgeon, and probably knows more about the gut than I ever will. My contribution is one of gratitude for having a peg on which I can hang a coat and pick up several other topics related to obesity.
Obesity, like drink or drugs, comes from filling the empty hole inside us. It can lead to greed, excess and, as we see in many areas, premature death, or certainly an unhealthy later life. It represents a great cost to the NHS and we have to continue working on it. I declare an interest as a member of the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee, which has just produced the report Recipe for Health. We did not focus excessively on fat, but I am sure that colleagues who are better qualified than I may make contributions on that topic.
We did not focus on the new drugs either. I am worried about what lies ahead with the changes in prospect from those drugs. I shall say a little more about that. In the committee, to the extent that I was able to attend, I focused primarily on the fundamental problem of excess sugar being consumed, particularly by children, who I worry about, and the consequences of that. The major reason why children go to hospitals and A&E is dental problems, which in the main arise from sugar.
Like our committee, I should have liked to see taxes introduced to reduce the amount of sugar that we find in soft drinks and elsewhere, but we did not get that yesterday in the Budget. Instead, we got a reduction in the price of alcohol—what a surprise. Our report did not look at the point the noble Lord, Lord McColl, raised about the effect of alcohol on obesity. I welcome my noble friend the Minister, who is listening to me again on this topic. I have been campaigning for years that we should show calories not just on menus but on all drinks. The one area of drinks that is excepted, of course, is alcohol. The previous Government were looking at that and undertaking consultation. I do not know whether they ever concluded it, so could my noble friend say whether they did? She may not have the answer to hand, but could she write to us? If it was concluded, what is the outturn of that exercise and when will we see a Labour Government prepared to introduce calories to labelling on alcohol? Some of her forebears spoke in favour of it when I was campaigning for this over a decade ago. It is sugar that worries me.
The new drugs will be used and needed, but we have to avoid some of the difficulties of lack of regulation and oversight that we have had in the past when new drugs have been introduced. I have done work over many years on addiction related to drink and drugs. I did work on heroin in the early part of this century, when methadone was introduced in lieu of heroin to try to reduce harm. We were spending next to nothing in 2005 on methadone. I cannot now get from the Government a precise or even a round figure on what we are spending currently on methadone, but the rumour is that it is about £1 billion a year, when you take into account not just producing it but the way it has to be administered and the secondary trading that takes place. This is the danger that I bring to the Committee’s attention, which we must be aware of. Unless we keep strict controls on the new drug, we could see it mushroom and spread very quickly indeed—and we could even see secondary markets start to develop. I hope that the Minister is aware of that.
Can we look for incentives to get the food and drinks industry to change its approach? I know that some of them are willing to have conversations about trying to have better formulas in foods, and I hope the Government will be prepared to move on that front.
Food and Drink Industry: Processed Sugar
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to engage the food and drink industry in reformulating their products to reduce processed sugar in favour of healthier natural alternatives.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, last month, as part of our health mission shift to prevention, we published the Government’s response to the consultation on banning junk-food advertising to children, putting the legislation on track and encouraging industry to reformulate and reduce sugar levels in products. There is continued engagement with industry to support action and understand the challenges that are faced in order to make the necessary changes and we continue to review the balance between mandatory and voluntary incentives to reduce sugar in everyday food and drink.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. I noted the reports about the shift; I wonder whether I can persuade her to shift the Government a little further. I endeavoured to persuade the previous Government that we should engage in further discussions in a round-table way with the food and drink industry to try to reduce the amount of processed sugar. I seek to persuade the Minister to convene a round-table meeting of those in the private sector interested in trying to effect reformulation in food and drink and to let us see something positive actually happening.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
We certainly want to reduce sugar intake, and I commend my noble friend for his campaigning on this issue. I know he will continue, rightly, to press me on this. We want to ensure that we learn from experts and will welcome further research in this area. We already have regular meetings with industry and monitor the progress being made. The ultimate prize is not just about looking at reducing sugar and replacing it with sweeteners but finding that our palates are encouraged to adapt to a rather less sweet taste, and that will be the best way forward.