Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle childhood obesity rates in the North of England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to supporting people to stay healthier for longer. This includes tackling the determinants that underpin stark health inequalities to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions.
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and its commitment to raising the healthiest generation of children in history. The Department is working closely with the Child Poverty Taskforce to develop and deliver an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackle the root causes, and give every child the best start in life. An important part of this will be alleviating the negative experience of living in poverty through supporting families and enhancing public services.
The 10-Year Health Plan outlines a range of actions to address childhood obesity. This includes restricting junk food advertising targeted at children, banning the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16-year-olds, and using our revised National Planning Policy Framework to give local councils stronger powers to block new fast-food outlets near schools. We will work with the Department for Education to update school food standards. To support families, we are expanding free school meals to all children with a parent in receipt of universal credit. By the end of the Parliament, we will introduce mandatory healthy food sales reporting for all large companies in the food sector.
Healthy Start is a demand-led, statutory scheme and aims to support those in greatest need. As part of the 10-Year Health Plan we announced that we will uplift the value of weekly payments by 10%, boosting the ability to buy healthy food for those families who need it most. From April 2026, pregnant women and children aged over one and under four years old will each receive £4.65 per week, up from £4.25, and children under one years old will receive £9.30 per week, up from £8.50.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ regional teams support and work towards the Government’s Opportunity and Health Missions to give children the best start in life. The teams recognise the Food, Health and Nutrition in the North of England report and strive to address the challenges and inequalities our children and young people face in the region. Regional teams work closely with local partners, including local authorities and the National Health Service, to support them with local initiatives to promote a healthy lifestyle and tackle obesity.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to page 58 of the policy paper entitled 10 Year Health Plan for England: fit for the future, published on 3 July 2025, whether Danone's commitment never to introduce a high sugar product to children refers to the recommended levels of sugar for (a) children and (b) adults; and whether this applies to Alpro growing up milks.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out decisive action to tackle the obesity crisis and ease the strain on the NHS, as well as to create the healthiest generation of children ever. It details a number of actions that the Government will take, including plans to introduce mandatory healthy food sales reporting for all large companies in the food sector, fulfilling commitments to restrict junk food advertising targeted at children, banning the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s and updating the UK Nutrient Profile Model (NPM) 2004/05.
Danone’s published commitment is to never produce a product for children that is high in saturated fat, salt or sugar (HFSS) as defined by the UK Government’s current policy and legislation as a less healthy product.
The Government’s policy and legislation being referred to uses the UK NPM 2004/05 to determine whether a product is classed as being HFSS or non-HFSS. The 2004/05 NPM does not assess individual nutrients in isolation (for example sugar), but it considers the balance of the ingredients and the nutrient composition of foods. The scoring system that underpins the UK NPM 2004/05 was based on dietary reference values for children aged 11 to 16 years’ old, but it was subsequently found to be equally applicable to foods and drinks consumed by those over the age of 5 years. The nutritional needs of infants and young children under 5 years differ from those of older children and adults. Therefore. the UK NPM 2004/05 is not currently regarded as suitable to assess commercially available food and drink products that are to be consumed only by children under 5 years, including Alpro Growing Up Milks.
Asked by: Dan Aldridge (Labour - Weston-super-Mare)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the effectiveness of using Body Mass Index as a way of measuring childhood obesity through the National Child Measurement Programme.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In January 2025, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) reviewed evidence and assessed the most accurate methods for identifying childhood obesity and thresholds for predicting the risk associated with overweight and obesity. They recommend that Body Mass Index (BMI) centile (BMI adjusted for age and sex) is a useful practical measure for estimating and defining overweight and obesity in children and young people.
The Government accepts NICE’s evidence review, assessment and recommendations as national guidance for measuring childhood obesity through the National Child Measurement Programme, including that:
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to help reduce childhood obesity rates in Slough.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The prevention of ill health is a clear priority for the Government, and a cornerstone of this is supporting children, including those in Slough, to live healthier lives.
The 10 Year Health Plan, published on 3 July, sets out decisive action on the obesity crisis. In a world first, we will introduce mandatory healthy food sales reporting for large food businesses and using that reporting, we will set new targets to increase the healthiness of sales.
We will also fulfil our commitments to restrict junk food advertising and ban the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under 16-year-olds. We have given local councils stronger powers to limit school children’s access to fast-food.
Officials in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ South East team work closely with local partners, including local authorities and the National Health Service, to support them with local initiatives to promote a healthy lifestyle and tackle obesity.
Asked by: Sarah Bool (Conservative - South Northamptonshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 18 July 2025 to Question 67789 on Diabetes: Health Services, if he will make it his policy to collect data on the cost of diabetic ketoacidosis.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
A central mission of the Government is to build a health and care system that is fit for the future. Tackling preventable ill health, such as type 2 diabetes, is crucial. Shifting the focus from treatment to prevention is one of three shifts for the Government’s mission for a National Health Service that is fit for the future and is a cornerstone of supporting people to live healthier lives.
Preventing diabetes, like obesity, is a complex issue and requires multi-faceted action across both the public and private sector. Prevention involves collaboration across the public and private sectors to tackle underlying issues such obesity, poor diets, and lifestyle issues.
The Department is taking steps to prevent type 2 diabetes through programmes such as the NHS Health Check, England’s flagship cardiovascular disease prevention programme for those aged between 40 and 74 years old, which aims to identify people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, as well as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and some cases of dementia, and to signpost them to behavioural support such as weight management and clinical treatment if needed.
Once identified, those at risk of developing type 2 diabetes can also be referred by their general practitioner into the Healthier You NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme. The programme is highly effective, cutting the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 37% for people completing the programme, compared to those who do not attend.
The annual costs of treating patients over 18 years old and children with diabetic ketoacidosis is not available, as this data is not routinely collected and/or analysed nationally. There are currently no plans to collect this data.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of schools in England that have a fast food facility within 400m.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The department has not made an estimate of the number of schools in England that have a fast food facility within 400 meters, as the department has no remit over the locations of fast food outlets.
As part of the summer 2024 National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) consultation, the government sought views on how national planning policy could better support local authorities in promoting healthy communities, specifically in tackling childhood obesity.
The revised NPPF published in December 2024 introduced a new policy to restrict new hot food takeaways and fast food outlets within walking distance of schools and other places where children and young people congregate unless the location is in a designated town centre. Applications should also be refused where there is evidence that a concentration of such uses is having an adverse impact on local health, pollution or anti-social behaviour.
Asked by: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned advertising restrictions on less healthy food on commercial broadcasters' advertising revenues.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has set a bold ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and will take action to address the childhood obesity crisis. This requires a range of policies, which is why we have set out decisive action in the 10-Year Health Plan. As part of this, we are committed to implementing the advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the United Kingdom and deliver approximately £2 billion in health benefits. The restrictions are expected to reduce childhood obesity by 20,000 cases. The restrictions specifically target categories of products that have been identified as of most concern in relation to childhood obesity. However, we also recognise that the restrictions will have an impact on businesses, and we have therefore made sure that the restrictions are proportionate and strike the right balance between health benefits and impact on businesses, for example ensuring that brand advertising which does not identify less healthy food or drink products is not in the scope of the policy.
Asked by: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned advertising restrictions on less healthy food on reducing the calorie intake of children (1) in total per year, and (2) per child per year.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has set a bold ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and will take action to address the childhood obesity crisis. This requires a range of policies, which is why we have set out decisive action in the 10-Year Health Plan. As part of this, we are committed to implementing the advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the United Kingdom and deliver approximately £2 billion in health benefits. The restrictions are expected to reduce childhood obesity by 20,000 cases. The restrictions specifically target categories of products that have been identified as of most concern in relation to childhood obesity. However, we also recognise that the restrictions will have an impact on businesses, and we have therefore made sure that the restrictions are proportionate and strike the right balance between health benefits and impact on businesses, for example ensuring that brand advertising which does not identify less healthy food or drink products is not in the scope of the policy.
Asked by: Lord Harper (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their planned advertising restrictions on less healthy food on reducing child obesity.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has set a bold ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever and will take action to address the childhood obesity crisis. This requires a range of policies, which is why we have set out decisive action in the 10-Year Health Plan. As part of this, we are committed to implementing the advertising restrictions for less healthy food and drink on television and online. These restrictions are expected to remove up to 7.2 billion calories from children’s diets per year in the United Kingdom and deliver approximately £2 billion in health benefits. The restrictions are expected to reduce childhood obesity by 20,000 cases. The restrictions specifically target categories of products that have been identified as of most concern in relation to childhood obesity. However, we also recognise that the restrictions will have an impact on businesses, and we have therefore made sure that the restrictions are proportionate and strike the right balance between health benefits and impact on businesses, for example ensuring that brand advertising which does not identify less healthy food or drink products is not in the scope of the policy.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of poverty on access to (a) minimally processed and (b) healthy food (i) for children and young people and (ii) in general.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Delivering on our commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for the Government, and the Ministerial Child Poverty Taskforce is working to publish the Child Poverty Strategy.
Evidence suggests that in the long-term, food insecurity may be associated with poorer diets and poorer health, including higher risk of overweight and obesity. Further information on the evidence is available at the following link:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6426124/
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ UK Food Security Report 2024, which pulls together data from a range of sources including the Department of Work and Pensions’ Family Resources Survey, found that 90% of United Kingdom households were food secure in 2022/23. Further information on the UK Food Security Report 2024 is available at the following link:
Data from the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey report shows that participants in higher income households, and households in less deprived areas, were closer to meeting some dietary recommendations. However, where diets failed to meet recommendations, this was consistent across the range of income and deprivation. Further information is available at the following link:
Healthy Start was introduced in 2006. It helps to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children under four years old from very low-income households, supporting the Government’s aim to create the healthiest generation of children in our history.
Healthy Start is a demand-led, statutory scheme and aims to support those in greatest need. We recently announced in Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan that we will uplift the value of weekly payments by 10%, boosting the ability to buy healthy food for those families who need it most. From April 2026, pregnant women and children aged over one years old and under four years old will each receive £4.65 per week, up from £4.25, and children under one years old will receive £9.30 per week, up from £8.50.
Through the Food Strategy, the Government is also transforming the food system in the UK to make good, healthy food more accessible and affordable, as part of the Government's Plan for Change.