Politicians back call for bold national food strategy

Former health tsar Henry Dimbleby has urged the Government to urgently publish its plans for a new national food strategy after a new report he co-authored revealed broad cross-party support for stricter measures against the food industry.

Three former prime ministers and 10 former health secretaries are among a group of former leaders backing action in the new report released today, authored by Dimbleby and public health expert Dr Dolly van Tulleken .

It includes interviews with Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, all of whom say more needs to be done to tackle the obesity crisis.

The report, which also has the backing of figures including former Health Secretary Sajid Javid, former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the man who recruited Dimbleby, Michael Gove, claims that successive governments have given up on taking the necessary measures due to fears of a backlash against the nanny state. .

The authors say all former leaders regret giving in to industry lobbying and opposition from more radical backbenchers, and wish they had taken bold action.

The report comes after The Grocer revealed last week that the government had delayed publishing plans for a new cross-departmental national health strategy due to be announced last week due to anger over tax measures in the Budget , which saw 10,000 farmers withdraw. the streets of London.

Speaking on The Today show this morning, Dimbleby urged the Government to publish the plans urgently, saying it was absolutely what was needed to tackle the crisis.

The new report, Nourishing Britain: a policy manual for improving the health of nations, features an unprecedented number of interviews with senior politicians who support tougher action against obesity.

He urges the Government to be bold and act quickly and says the Prime Minister's leadership is essential for the plans to succeed.

In the report, Tony Blair calls for bold and innovative action, including shifting the focus of the NHS from treatment to prevention.

David Cameron says: The government can and must do much more. The report also quotes Boris Johnson, who abandoned plans to tackle obesity under pressure from Tory backbenchers, despite a near-death experience with Covid, saying: The government must do something to try to resolve this problem. We cannot remain indifferent to these levels of suffering.

The report also cites a series of former Labor and Conservative health secretaries who express frustration at anti-obesity plans blunted by political opposition to the nanny state, from industry , the press and within ministries such as the Treasury.

A lot of personal pressure was put on the Prime Minister in Parliament, in the media and elsewhere, and I think he was more in the mood to compromise with his backbenchers, the former secretary said to Johnson Health, Sajid Javid.

Former Labor health secretary Alan Milburn said: “Someone asked me the other day, and it was not a positive question, what I did every day as health secretary Health. My response was: I had an argument; every day I had an argument.

But Milburn adds: “There's a point where you reach a tipping point where the thing becomes so huge and so impactful that you have to act. You get to this hot platform moment and I guess that's where we are.

Dimbleby said the report showed the strength of cross-party support for action.

Finally, politicians across the spectrum agree that we haven't done enough to fight obesity, he said.

We now need their successors to learn from their experiences so they can avoid their mistakes and build on what works.

Dr van Tulleken added: “I am regularly asked why politicians can't just fix the food system and reduce obesity rates. We've spoken to many who have tried. What is striking is that none of them, left or right, regrets their efforts, but some would have liked to do much more. Many have faced fierce lobbying, lost fights, or had to spend their political capital on something else. All believe this is a major political challenge and urge the new government to act quickly and be bold.

Ravi Gurumurthy, CEO of health promotion group Nesta, which published the report, said: “What this research reveals is an unusual cross-party consensus. Prime ministers and health secretaries from all parties wish they had done more to tackle obesity. They told us that radical progress was possible and necessary.

There is now a window to achieve this. The public supports measures to prevent disease and obesity. The left and right may disagree on the size of government, but neither wants the state to spend tens of billions a year on preventable obesity-related diseases.

Also speaking on the Today show earlier this morning, FDF chief executive Karen Betts said companies had spent many millions to make their products healthier, but said the industry was prepared to stricter measures, including supporting new health warnings on HFSS product labels.

The first thing I would say is how seriously the industry is taking the issue of obesity in the UK, she said. The fact that two thirds of adults are overweight or suffering from obesity is a serious problem that puts their long-term health at risk and puts the NHS under pressure.

The food industry wants to get involved on this subject, we know that this is part of the solution.

But she also called on ministers to measure the impact on existing legislation on HFSS, including legislation on promotions and the 9pm advertising watershed, which has not yet been introduced, before introduce other measures such as taxation, as called for by Dimbleby and the recent report of the House of Lords obesity inquiry.