Children’s Health: Sugar

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct. What we give children in schools is a key thing that the Government can affect. That is why I am delighted that the level of free school meals, at 33%, is the highest on record, making sure that they have good nutritious food. But the noble Baroness is correct: there was a review taking place in 2019, which was one of the casualties of Covid. I know that it is now one of the things that we are thinking, as we recover from Covid, that we need to look at again.

[Lord Tomlinson (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has spoken passionately about reducing the intake of sugar by younger people. Are His Majesty’s Government intending to admit obese children with type 2 diabetes to the two-year pilot study of the new drug Wegovy?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My understanding—and I will confirm this afterwards—is that, to begin with, always with these sorts of treatments, you want to make sure that you are doing it in a safer type of environment. Generally, having adults doing it is a better place to start. Clearly, if that works the way we think, and we can trust that it will work, then you have opportunities to expand beyond that. The other thing I would like to say on this is that, actually, an active life is very important—activity and sports are a very important component of this. Interestingly, it has been shown that an active life increases life expectancy by one to two years, so that is an important feature in all this as well.