Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat]

Compared with 2010, we are referring an average of 800,000 more people urgently for cancer treatment. My hon. Friend is also right to say that both skin and lung cancer have more straightforward pathways than ovarian and bowel cancer, but that is not to say that we should not focus on continually improving in relation to the points made by the right hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart).

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

5. What steps he is taking to implement his Department’s childhood obesity strategy.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

8. What steps he is taking to implement his Department’s childhood obesity strategy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Nicola Blackwood)]

The Department is working closely with Public Health England, the national health service, local authorities, schools and other partners as we implement the childhood obesity strategy. We have already taken firm action, including consulting on the soft drinks industry levy and launching a broad sugar reduction programme.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Channel 4’s “Dispatches” programme has comprehensively demonstrated how the former Prime Minister’s obesity strategy was drastically watered down by the time of the final publication. Both Public Health England and the Health Committee agree that control of in-store promotions of unhealthy food is absolutely vital. Why was regulation of such promotions ditched from the Government strategy?

[Nicola Blackwood]

We have made no secret of the fact that we considered a range of policies before publishing the childhood obesity strategy, which is a world-leading strategy and one of the most ambitious in the world. It will cut childhood obesity by one fifth in the next 10 years, and I am determined that we do not get lost in a debate about what it could or should have been, but instead get on with implementing it. Our children deserve no less.