Tackling Obesity

Alex McIntyre Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his point. He is exactly right that there is a huge disparity. We know that healthy food is too often out of reach for those on the poorest incomes, especially so when it comes to children, and that is not reflected currently. That is what we hope the modern service framework might start from—how we close that patchwork of services across the country and make inequality one of the core missions of this Government through this policy.

[Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her statement. Most of the House will know—I have spoken about this publicly—that I have had a lifelong battle with obesity. It was only when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at 33 years old last year that the NHS stepped in to help. Since then, I have lost seven and a half stone through the diabetes path to remission programme. My plea to the Minister for Public Health and Patient Safety, who I know is listening intently, is that those of us with lived experience of obesity and overweight are included in the conversation about how we tackle this, because for too long people who have not experienced it have dictated to those of us who have, about how best to go forward.

The path to remission programme for type 2 diabetes is referenced in the report and its conclusions because it is a proven weight loss intervention, but it is currently only available to a small subset of people with type 2 diabetes. Does she agree that this cost-effective and efficient way to help people like me to lose weight should be rolled out to people living with obesity nationally?

[Layla Moran]

I pay enormous tribute to the former member of the Committee. I can entirely understand why he was elevated to other things, but he was very much my right-hand man through the obesity side of this inquiry. I completely agree with him—it was stark. We know what works, and the path for how we do this is clear, but what was missing was a joined-up approach, not just across Departments but within the NHS itself. He is completely right that there are things that work and we know what we need to do, but at the moment we are not seeing that joined-up approach that we need Government to take to achieve it.