Junk Food Advertising and Childhood Obesity

Debate between Steve Brine and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Steve Brine)]

Child obesity remains one of the top public health challenges on my desk and for the Government. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) on securing this debate through the offices of the Backbench Business Committee. I also thank the Health Committee for its ongoing inquiry into child obesity. Its Chair is not able to be here today, but she has a great personal interest in this subject. Ministers always say that debates are wide-ranging, useful and interesting, but this one certainly has been—it has been much wider than the title of the debate. We have learned a number of things, not least the shadow Minister’s new year activities. She has learned about the work of the pop band the Editors and advergames in the last week alone, and it sounds like one of her new year’s resolutions is to look into Candy Crush—the things you learn here!

As colleagues who are still here will be aware, the latest figures continue to show that our childhood obesity rates remain too high. About a third of children leaving school are overweight or obese. I and the Government will not accept that. In addition, evidence shows that the deprivation gap in obesity prevalence between children in the most and least deprived areas continues to widen. Again, I definitely will not accept that. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made that point well. When she first came to office, the Prime Minister spoke on the steps of Downing Street about the burning injustices she sees in this country. This is undoubtedly one of the pillars of burning injustice in Britain today.

The gap continues into adulthood: obese children are much more likely to become obese adults, which increases their risk of developing serious diseases, as we have heard, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and, of particular interest to me as the cancer Minister, more than 13 types of cancer—I suspect that is underplaying it—including bowel and breast cancer. The shadow Minister and I share a great interest in that subject, having chaired the all-party group on breast cancer for many years together. Obesity is also a major risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, as a number of hon. Members said. I see this as a huge challenge to individuals’ health and wellbeing, and a huge cost to the NHS and the country. Obesity-related ill health is estimated to cost the NHS some £5 billion a year—again, I suspect that that underplays it.

There is no denying that obesity is a complex, far-reaching problem. It will sadly not be solved by one action alone, as pretty much all hon. Members said—my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash said that in opening the debate. Neither will it be solved overnight. It is a tanker to be turned around. We launched our childhood obesity plan in August 2016, informed by the latest evidence and research in the area. It challenges us all—the national Government, local government, businesses, the NHS, schools and families—to play our role in reducing childhood obesity levels. There are many parts of the jigsaw, and many players we need to tackle, including the healthiness of the food we are eating, how much we are eating—portion size—how active we are and the environment we live in. Of course, marketing plays an important part.

As part of the plan, we introduced two key measures to challenge the food and drink industry to improve the healthiness of the food children eat every day, and those policies are already showing positive signs. The soft drinks industry levy, which is set to become law in April, has already seen almost half of the soft drink market reformulate its sugary soft drinks to include less sugar. Companies such as the maker of Lucozade and Ribena —I will be visiting it later this week to see more detail—and Tesco have led the way by removing millions of tonnes of sugar. That is a crucial step forward in improving our children’s health, as the data shows us that sugary soft drinks are the main contributor of sugar in our children’s diets.

[Kerry McCarthy]

This is slightly off-topic, but Lucozade has been named public villain No. 2 after Pringles, in terms of its plastic packaging. The plastic sleeves around the outsides of the bottles mean that they are impossible to recycle. Lucozade and Ribena are particularly bad. Will the Minister mention that too when he is having a go at the company about sugar?

[Ms Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Order. I will allow that, Ms McCarthy, but that is the only off-issue topic.