PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Childhood Obesity - 7 March 2023 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

The Government are committed to addressing childhood obesity. We have introduced calorie labelling for on-the-go food and brought in the sugar tax. To drive up activity, we are spending £330 million a year on school sport through the PE premium and investing £300 million in new facilities through the youth investment fund. We are also spending £150 million a year on healthy food schemes such as school fruit and vegetables, nursery milk and the Healthy Start scheme.

A top local chef in Ashfield agrees with me that cooking meals from scratch is far cheaper and more nutritious than having processed foods and ready meals. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be a good idea to start teaching children basic cooking skills in school so that they can enjoy a healthier diet as part of our fight against obesity?

My hon. Friend is totally right. As well as the funding that I mentioned for healthy eating in schools, cooking and nutrition are part of the national curriculum from key stages 1 to 3, which aims to teach children how to cook and apply those principles of healthy eating, but I am sure there is more that we can do together.

The announcement of the Government-backed trial in Wolverhampton to introduce a Better Health: Rewards app is welcome, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson), who has campaigned hard for it. My constituency also suffers from poor health outcomes, including excessive levels of childhood obesity, with one in three year 6 children being overweight or obese. How will the Minister monitor the success of the trial? Will he consider extending it to areas such as West Bromwich East?

The Better Health: Rewards pilot that we are funding in Wolverhampton is very exciting, and more than 10,000 residents have already registered with the app. We will be monitoring the lessons of the pilot closely and looking at how we can apply them more broadly.

For such families it is about not necessarily the right food, but the cheapest food, which means that, in many cases, young children become obese through no fault of their own. What can be done to help families to buy healthier foods on a budget that is often minimal?

The hon. Gentleman is completely correct. As well as the actions that we are taking on healthy eating and obesity, that is exactly why we are spending £55 billion to help households and businesses with their energy bills this winter—one of the biggest packages in Europe. It is also why we have the £900 cost of living payment for 8 million poorer households, we are increasing the national living wage to its highest ever level, and we are spending £26 billion on the cost of living support this year. He is completely right and I commend his work on it.

I call the SNP spokesperson.

The Scottish Government aim to halve childhood obesity by 2030, but dealing with the consequences of a poor diet alone is not enough. It is essential to address the underlying causes, such as child poverty. What representations has the Minister made to his Cabinet colleagues about the Department for Work and Pensions and the damaging effects of some of its policies on public health outcomes?

I met the SNP’s public health lead last week and had an excellent conversation with her. As well as the sugar tax, we have introduced calorie labelling; volume and location restrictions on high fat, salt and sugar products, which come in from October; the advertising watershed from 2025; and all those other measures, such as school sport and the youth investment fund. We have done all that because we share exactly those concerns about obesity and we are driving forward work to tackle it.