Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We should look carefully at what the hon. Gentleman and others have said. We are looking across the piece at all the issues, including whether we should follow the Australians with the ban on packaging and what more we can to do to restrict smoking in public places. There has been a real health advance from some of the measures that have been taken. We must consider each one and work out whether there is a real public health benefit, but he makes a good point.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

It is 22 years since the landmark Medical Research Council report made a direct link between folic acid use by childbearing women and the prevention of neural tube defects such as spina bifida. Scores of countries have fortified their basic food stuffs, but the policy in this country is mired in bureaucracy between the Food Standards Agency, the Department of Health and others. Will the Prime Minister reassure the House that he will do everything he can to unblock the logjam to prevent the entirely preventable conditions of hydrocephalus and spina bifida?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at what my hon. Friend has said. It is certainly true that the levels of conditions such as spina bifida have come down and that folic acid has an important role to play. I shall look at the specific points he makes and the bureaucratic problem he identifies and perhaps get the Department of Health to write to him about it.