Obesity and Fatty Liver Disease

Debate between Will Quince and Maggie Throup

Thursday 8th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point; I totally agree. As further details are published, he will see the current criteria for accessing those drugs. The reality is that more and more are coming on stream, and they will be part of our arsenal and one of our tools to help people tackle obesity and make healthier life choices.

What do we also know about the drugs? Well, we know that they are effective. However, they are effective only for as long as someone takes them, unless they change their lifestyle and behaviour. Anything we do in relation to drugs must be alongside an education piece, and supporting and empowering people to make healthier life choices. Ultimately, and ideally, we do not want people to be on drugs for the rest of their lives where it is not necessary. We want the drugs to be a tool and enabler to help and support them to get to a place where they can manage their own weight. That might be difficult for some people and they may struggle to do so, and for others it may not. It is just a helping hand; the hon. Gentleman is right.

As hon. Members made their contributions, I scribbled down the actions—just in my own mind—that the Government have taken over the past few years, such as calorie labels on food in supermarkets. I know that that made such a difference, because when I am looking, I make active choices. I look at the traffic light system, I look at the calories, and I look at the amount of salt and sugar in these products; and doing so enables me to make healthier choices. That is important. There is the calorie labelling on food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafés and takeaways, which came into force back in April—not uncontroversially.

[Maggie Throup]

My hon. Friend is right that there is a lot more information there for people to make informed decisions on, but there are also hidden contents that people are not being informed about, such as the ultra-processed foods. Products may be labelled as low in fat, but they have other products in them to ensure that they will taste okay and still be low in fat. We need to not just look more at the overall messaging on packaging, but ensure that we reduce some other items in the products that are causing the obesity crisis.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we are constantly learning more. At the moment, I do not think there is a definition of an “ultra-processed food”. There has been a lot of work. We are learning more and more about the issue and it has recently exploded into the public domain. We need to ensure that more people are aware of and being educated about what is actually in their food, and that they are looking at labels. If we go back 20 years, we were all very much alive to E numbers —does everyone remember E numbers?—which no one looked at before. Now, we often look over the back of the packaging to see the number of E numbers in our products. The more that the public are educated and informed so that they can look out for these things, the better. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough will be happy to discuss this further with my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash. I know that ultra-processed foods are an issue about which the public are concerned, and we certainly have more to do on food labelling.

Childhood Obesity Strategy

Debate between Will Quince and Maggie Throup

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend and I would be delighted to take another look at that piece of research.

My hon. Friend has made a case for the sugar tax to protect the poorest, and I think that that was the point that she was just making. As I have mentioned, and this is a good point, the poorest children are the most likely to be obese. However, the statistics show that, in low-income households in Britain, soft drink purchases dropped by 14% between 2007 and 2013. Perhaps a 20% sugar tax on soft drinks is not very much to celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and some of those who are pushing the idea of a sugar tax, but for those on the lowest incomes—who we know, proportionally, buy these products—about 12p a can or 37p per 2 litre bottle is a massive amount of money.

[Maggie Throup]

I think that the point is that we are talking about a tax on sugary drinks and there are alternatives, such as drinks with artificial sweeteners. We are not making it so that these people do not have a choice. There are two different sides of the argument.

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As someone who spent five years working in the soft drinks industry, I think she makes a valuable point. We need to question what we want our children—and adults —to drink. Do we want them drinking sugar or sodium benzoate, acesulfame and aspartame? That is a whole separate debate that we can have. I tend to choose to drink diet variants myself, but those options are there and the industry is driving people towards those lower calorie drinks. Let us take Britvic Soft Drinks as an example. Members will notice that they can buy a 600 ml bottle of diet Pepsi or Tango for the same price as a 500 ml full-sugar variant. The industry is already encouraging behavioural change.

To return to the Mexican experiment, 63% of sugar tax receipts have been collected from low-income households and 37.5% of receipts came from those in poverty. As I mentioned before, particularly with soft drinks but across the board, labelling has never been better, nor has the choice for consumers. The industry is doing a huge amount of work to encourage behavioural change and do the right thing.

I am conscious of the time and that lots of Members would like to speak, so I will conclude. I welcome a debate on childhood obesity and a clear strategy to reduce it. There are a huge number of measures that we as a Government could take ourselves and that we could encourage businesses and organisations to take, but let us ensure that the strategy is based on solid evidence. I strongly believe that a sugar tax is not the answer.