Children’s Health

Simon Opher Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered children’s health.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this incredibly important debate. This Government’s ambition is to raise the healthiest generation of children ever. There is so much about improving child health in the 10-year plan, “Fit for the Future”. I am genuinely quite excited about the 10-year plan—maybe I am sad, but that is the sort of thing that excites me. I have been a GP for 30 years, and I have a special interest in child health and child mental health. I will talk briefly about prevention, mental health and then paediatric services.

First, obesity is a massive problem in young people. At the age of five, 10% of children are obese. By the age of 11, 22% are obese—and that does not count the children who are overweight. This starts in pregnancy. We must ensure that pregnant women have really healthy diets, because that reduces obesity. When a baby is born, parents need to be aware that follow-on milks and “hungry baby” milks are basically just milk packed full of sugar. That will not do the child any good. If they are hungry, they need to change their diet and possibly go on to solids. Baby snacks often look healthy—they might have a nice, healthy carrot on them—but when we look at what is in them, they are packed full of sugar as well. Parents need to have a clear idea of what is healthy, so that they can choose the healthiest foods for their children.

The Government are going to bring in a watershed for junk food advertising—it was going to be in October, but it is now promised for January 2026. That is incredibly important, because young people are very sensitive to advertising. A recent report in The BMJ found more than 90 different sponsorship deals in football and six other sports with foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar. We need to look at that issue, because young people look up to sports stars and are very influenceable. They have to advertise healthy foods, because otherwise we will continue to have an obesity epidemic.

In the 10-year plan I was delighted to see measures in the national planning policy framework about fast-food outlets near schools. We must stop those. They are cynically placed close to schools, and they are particularly prevalent in more deprived areas. A couple of other things that I am delighted about include free school meals for children from households in receipt of universal credit. Free school meals have an obvious relationship to obesity and tend to bring it down. I am also delighted that in the autumn we will look at school food standards, and hopefully reduce the amount of processed meat that seems to be in a lot of school foods. The other part of the 10-year plan that excites me is the mandatory health food sales with supermarkets. That has been evidenced to reduce obesity, so I am delighted about that. Let me move on quickly to physical exercise—I am keen for other Members to get the opportunity to talk—because 50% of children are not sufficiently active, and two-thirds cannot swim 25 metres.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the previous Government’s lack of investment in vital leisure facilities, such as the swimming pool in Atherstone in my constituency, which is overdue for renovation, is causing many of these problems? The lack of PE in schools and the lack of safe places for children to play, be active and get involved in sport is causing some of the obesity problems.

[Dr Opher]

I totally agree—indeed, my hon. Friend pre-empts some of my remarks.

Another proposal in the 10-year plan involves the investment, through Sports England, of £250 million into such opportunities for children. The Starlight Children’s Foundation promotes play and exercise, and I am a particular fan of adventure playgrounds in urban areas, which allow children to cut loose, particularly after school, expend energy, and have fun in a safe setting.

I am also working with colleagues on access to nature. It is incredibly important that every child has access to nature, so that they can explore nature and have that type of exercise. I also stress that 50% of children have active travel—bike or walking—to get themselves to school. Let us increase that; let us try to get more children cycling and walking to school, as that will increase their fitness.

Dental care is also in the 10-year plan. I am delighted to see that supervised brushing is already there, and also that fluoride varnish will be applied by people to prevent dental caries from occurring. I will give a quick shout-out on asthma prevention, which is key and all about air quality. I know some young people who, since the ultra low emission zone scheme was introduced, have stopped using their inhalers because pollution has gone down. That is something we must emphasise.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

On air quality, will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the Stop the Stink campaigners in Newcastle-under-Lyme, who fought so hard to clean the air around schools such as St Mary’s primary school on Silverdale Road? Their work helped to make the lungs of our young people that bit healthier.

[Dr Opher]

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right: clean air is one way to address our five most preventable health risks, and we must do more on that.

[Adam Jogee]

Will my hon. Friend join me in calling on the Government to adopt World Health Organisation levels for particulate matter 2.5?

[Dr Opher]

I am afraid that is not my special area, but it sounds like a good idea and I thank my hon. Friend. Because we cannot see clean air, we do not realise what it is doing, but people genuinely need their inhalers less, and particularly for young people with asthma that is incredibly important.

I want to talk quickly about early years support. In Gloucestershire, an organisation called Home-Start involves volunteers going into the homes of women who have just given birth to support them. Interestingly, women who have had that support often go on to be volunteers. It is a fantastic organisation. This week I was delighted that the successor to Sure Start, Best Start family hubs, is coming back. Sure Start was one of the most glorious things that the Blair Government did, and it affected the health of young people enormously. I am pleased that childcare is getting much more funding. Furthermore, as set out in the 10-year plan, Healthy Start will be restarted in 2026-27, providing money to pregnant women and children aged one to four whose families are in financial difficulty, helping those who are less well off.

Mental healthcare is in a bit of a crisis. Some 25% of young people have mental health issues. We spend only 10% of NHS funds on mental health, but it contributes to over 20% of morbidity. About a million people are on the child and adolescent mental health service waiting list at the moment, and I know that Ministers are doing all that they can to bring that down. To prevent poor mental health, we need to look at exercise, as I have mentioned, and at music in schools, which is proven to reduce rates of mental ill health. I am backing the National Education Union campaign to get rid of SATs, which cause enormous tension and stress in young people.

On treatment, I am delighted that we will have mental health support teams in every school—I understand that 60% will be in place by next April, and 100% by the end of this Parliament. We will have 8,500 more mental health workers and a whole-school approach. I particularly endorse the mental health first aid training that has happened in some Stroud schools, and I have also been looking at the Young Futures hubs.

With the massive CAMHS waiting list—in my area, people sometimes have to wait for two years—and the sudden increase in neurodiversity, we need to look at schemes that use creative and social prescriptions to deal with those children while they are on the waiting list. Given the right support, I reckon a lot of them will not need specialist psychiatric assessment. I am chair of the beyond pills all-party parliamentary group. Are hon. Members aware that one in eight 12 to 17-year-olds have been put on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant? That is scandalous.

This year, I hosted a roundtable at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Children are generally waiting longer than adults for care, which we must turn around. As I said, there are often long waiting lists for mental healthcare. Sadly, Harry, the son of my constituent, Louise Turner, had a sarcoma and died at the end of last year. She reports that the nursing staff and doctors were fantastic, but there was a lack of facilities, such that sometimes they would turn up for chemotherapy but there was no bed for Harry, so they had to go away and come back the next day. Going forward, we must ensure that that does not happen.

What is the solution? We need to get paediatric care out of the hospital and into the community. We need to get hot paediatrics—feverish kids—seen in the community, potentially by paediatricians or well-trained GPs. Furthermore, during GP training, which I have carried out for about 25 years, it is essential that every single doctor who becomes a GP has time in a paediatric assessment unit. The main feedback from the roundtable at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was that we must involve children in designing paediatric services, otherwise they will not work.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Opher]

I will not keep hon. Members long; I know it is late on a Thursday and people want to get back to their constituencies. I thank all hon. Members, including the Minister and Opposition Members, for staying and giving excellent speeches.

If we get children’s health right, it will bring a whole lifetime of benefits. That is why child health is so important. It is about getting them to do regular exercise, which will continue for life, and to have a decent diet, which will also continue for life, making them the healthiest generation we have ever known, so I thank Members and the Minister very much.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered children’s health.