Health: Red Cell Folate

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

The proposal is that bread should be fortified with folic acid. The point of doing it through bread is that most people eat bread and that it would reach the widest number of people. It would be fortifying a product that most people eat; that is the purpose of it.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister really saying that adding a very small amount to flour is mass medication; is that not overdoing it? I say to him, as I said on 21 December: can Ministers not come to a decision, yes or no? I get the sense that it is no, because he is putting much more stress on the issue of mass medication now than he has ever done on previous questions. I also go back to the answers that his noble friend Earl Howe gave over the last two or three years. Can the Minister not make that decision? The last thing we need would be to refer it yet again to another expert committee for yet more research, when it is quite clear that it would be effective and safe.

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I can only repeat what I said: we are in the process of making a decision and that decision will be made shortly.