Health and Care Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, particularly on his robust defence of fluoridation in Birmingham. I am going to concentrate on one clause, one schedule and one issue: Clause 144, Schedule 17 and part of the Government’s plan for tackling childhood obesity.

I have lost count of the reports from Select Committees and the National Audit Office on this vital issue, which, irrespective of the damage to health, is on course to bankrupt the National Health Service. I am informed that, since the early 1990s, there have been 14 reports containing 700 recommendations. No Government have done enough. When the coalition came in in 2010, there was a flurry of activity. The outcome, a serious plan, was effectively squashed by Theresa May in 2016 under pressure from the food industry. I was at a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee when I heard officials—I shall not name them as I had worked with one of them before—spell out what was planned, but it did not come about.

So, it is better late than never that the Government are acting. There is increased political will to act; this is to be welcomed and actively supported. We have moved on from the “nanny state” arguments nurtured by the food industry. Besides this Bill, though, I would like to know what the Government have been doing since September 2020, when the National Audit Office published HC 726, its report on childhood obesity. Its key findings were worrying, and the five recommendations were a serious plan of action. I have looked but, to be honest, I have not been able to get the detail.

The figures on childhood obesity are startling and on the move. They are not static—we are getting fatter. The National Audit Office’s report pointed out that 20.2% of 10 to 11 year-old children were obese in 2018-19. That figure rose to 26.9% for children in the most deprived areas. The brief from the Obesity Health Alliance gives more up-to-date figures. The last year has shown the fastest increase in child obesity on record. More than 40% of children are obese by the time they leave primary school; for year 6 children, the figure is up from 21% in 2019-20 to 25.5%. It will be really difficult to reverse this trend.

I am about to make my only politically incorrect point. I could not help but notice, in recent years, the astronomical size of some teachers in primary schools. Emerging evidence shows that, besides a 1% year-on-year growth in obesity, the Covid pandemic’s impact is likely to have accelerated the pace of increase in childhood obesity, so there is even more reason to be concerned.

I will support the Government’s action and spur them to do more. They could do a lot worse than adopt the 10-year Healthy Weight Strategy published by the Obesity Health Alliance in September this year. “Healthy weight” is a good way of describing the desired outcome. It does not conjure up too much negativity. I will be watching to ensure that there is no watering down of the modest proposals by the men who made us fat. In this respect, I prefer the evidence from the National Audit Office to that from the food industry on the effects of advertising.

Talking of the men who made us fat, the BBC should show again the 2012 BBC Two documentary “The Men Who Made Us Fat”. The science and methods, both physical and behavioural, that the food industry uses to get us to eat more are eye-watering in their lack of concern for the consequences to public health. I commend the Government and urge them to do more, and I will oppose any watering down.

As an aside, exactly two years ago this week I lost two weeks of my life without warning, with clots, sepsis, pneumonia and a lump. The staff at Hereford County Hospital stopped me going over to the dark side. So far, so good, and I am very pleased to say that I am part of a clinical trial to check the effect of the booster on those who have had leukaemia and lymphoma —a trial called “Prosecco”.