Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to meet the zero per cent prevalence increase target for obesity and diabetes by 2025, recommended by the World Health Organisation in its report: Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of NCDs 2013-2020.

We published the second chapter of our world-leading childhood obesity plan in June 2018. This builds on the real progress we have made since the publication of chapter one in 2016, particularly in reformulation of the products our children eat and drink most. Chapter two sets a bold ambition to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce the gap in obesity between children from the most and least deprived areas by 2030. We have reiterated this ambition in our vision document ‘Prevention is better than cure’ published in November 2018.

Many of the key measures in both chapters of our childhood obesity plan will have an impact on tackling obesity across all age groups. These include the soft drinks industry levy, sugar reduction and wider calorie reformulation programme, restricting promotions and calorie labelling in restaurants which will improve our eating habits and reduce the amount of sugar we consume.

‘Healthier You: The NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme’ started in 2016 and has reported that 280,763 individuals at risk of developing type 2 have been referred into the service and 123,249 individuals have now had an initial assessment. In 2018/19 the Programme achieved full national roll out, with services now available to people in every sustainability and transformation partnership in England, making England the first country in the world to achieve full geographical coverage.

It was recently announced that NHS England intends to double the capacity of Programme to up to 200,000 people per annum by 2023/24. NHS England is incorporating the ability to deliver digital prevention services alongside face to face services to expand the range of options for supporting people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.