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Public Health (England)

I suppose that any debate on public health will be wide-ranging, and this one certainly has been. Increasingly, debates on health follow a familiar pattern: the Government claim that the health service is performing splendidly and are very critical of how it was under Conservative Governments. Indeed, the Government say that life in Britain is wonderful and that it was awful under Conservative Governments. Listening to the Prime Minister being interviewed by John Humphrys this morning, I realised that he is suffering from a health problem—he is deluded—and the problem is catching. I listened very carefully to what the Minister with responsibility for public health had to say. I have always said that I think her very genuine in her commitment to public health, but I was concerned about her overall strategy. We have these debates—I do not suppose that we listen to each other—and nothing changes. However, I want to touch on three subjects, hoping, in an optimistic frame of mind, to make an impact. Health outcomes have improved dramatically; 150 years ago men lived, on average, to age 40 and women to 41, but today men live to 77 and women to 81. More extraordinary is the infant death rate, because it has fallen from more than 100 deaths for every 1,000 births in 1905 to five deaths for every 1,000 in 2004. Those results are wonderful, and the Minister is right to nod. Throughout the world all those outcomes are improving. The worry that my colleagues and I have is that on those two points our outcomes are not as good as those of any number of other countries. In a debate on public health the House might consider why that is. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) was entirely right to refer to the chief medical officer’s report. I would not describe the chief medical officer as a Conservative party lackey. In his annual report on public health, he devoted a whole chapter to public health budgets, which he entitled, ““Raiding public health budgets can kill””. He went on to state that he had talked extensively to public health professionals throughout the NHS over the past two years and the following points consistently emerged from their accounts. The first was that an"““Expressed commitment to public health by many health bodies is not matched by concerted action.””" That must be a worry for the Government. The second point was that"““Public health budgets are regularly raided to find funding to reduce hospital financial deficits or to meet productivity targets in clinical services…losing funding and the skills that had been acquired over time.””" Those are two points that have been made by the chief medical officer, not Conservative Members, and I ask the Minister, who I dare say will not have a great deal of time to wind up the debate, if she will comment on them. The second issue that I want to raise is the Health Committee’s report on obesity, which was ground-breaking and has had enormous effect. I know that the Minister with responsibility for public health took it very seriously. In praising industry and enterprise, I want to praise Sainsbury’s—I do not have shares in Sainsbury’s, but I might be offered some—which this week launched the most comprehensive alcohol labelling system to date. It is an excellent strategy and it is certainly what the Health Committee asked for. I cannot believe that the Minister is content with the childhood obesity situation. In 1999 the Government abandoned the targets in the Conservative Government’s first ever public health White Paper, which aimed to reduce rates of obesity in the general population to 6 per cent. among men and 8 per cent. among women. Current projections are that by 2010 the figures will have risen, and 33 per cent. of men and 28 per cent. of women will be obese. In addition, the National Audit Office has criticised the Government’s progress towards meeting the obesity public service agreement targets. As for childhood obesity, in 1995, 9.9 per cent. of children aged between two and 10 were obese, and that figure has steadily risen to 13.4 per cent. The Minister is only too well aware of the arguments on why that is, but what we would welcome are solutions. I welcome Ofcom’s decision to ban advertisements for unhealthy food. I remember when three Ministers gave evidence to the Health Committee on the subject—in fact, I think that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Bury, South (Mr. Lewis) was on the Committee—and there was an argument about the banning of advertisements for unhealthy food, so it is good that a ban has been introduced. I am concerned about the Public Accounts Committee report. It made eight recommendations that any hon. Member may read, and its conclusions were very worrying. For instance, it says:"““Important messages on diet and lifestyle have yet to get through to parents and children as clearly or as effectively as required.""To date, there has been little comprehensive, published research on the effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies for child obesity and, consequently, the Departments have…done little to intervene directly with individual children who are obese or at risk of becoming so or their parents.””" I have two other, quick points to mention; I know that four other colleagues wish to speak, and I do not believe in being greedy with the time. My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury mentioned Hepatitis C, and I happen to be the chairman of the all-party hepatology group. This week, Dame Anita Roddick attended our reception, and I am delighted to say that I awarded her with an Oscar, ahead of Sunday’s Oscars, in which I hope Dame Helen Mirren, a Leigh-on-Sea girl who went to St. Bernard’s high school in my constituency, will get an award. I was delighted to give Dame Anita Roddick an Oscar because she has been brave in putting her head above the parapet; I understand what my hon. Friend was getting at when he mentioned the subject. She spoke to us in a direct fashion, and although she was not overtly critical of the Government, I pass on to the Minister the fact that the grant of £70,000 to the Hepatitis C Trust is not overly generous. These days, we all have so little time to listen to each other, but the Hepatitis C Trust does listen to people. It tries to reassure them and deal with their anxieties, so when budgets are being considered, it would be nice if the trust were given more money. The other concern that I wanted to raise was about the advertising campaign. I know that the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury locked horns on the issue, and I will not get too involved in that, but I point out that the Hepatitis C Trust is concerned about the groups targeted. Let us consider all the dangers that we face today, what with the number of people getting tattoos. Groups felt concern about the way in which the advertising campaign was run. Dare I suggest that the Government would do well to turn to Saatchi & Saatchi, and other advertising agencies? I was going to say that I will end with sex, but instead I shall say that I will end with a point about sexual health. The Minister is probably fed up with my endless questions about abortion, but I will not shut up about the matter. Only this week, a little baby whom one could hold in the palm of one’s hand—she weighed 10 oz, and measured 9 in—survived when she was born at under 23 weeks, so the issue is not going to go away. Before the general election, the three party leaders were firm in their belief that something had to be done because of advances in medical science, but nothing has happened. Every year in Britain, 300 babies are born aged between 22 and 23 weeks—babies born at 23 weeks have a 17 per cent. chance of survival—so the House must do something about the issue. The Health Committee produced a report on the sexual health of the nation. The facilities we saw were pretty awful, and are not at all good compared with those overseas. Will the Minister say something about Chlamydia? The annual screening target is 945,000 16 to 24-year-olds, but so far we have screened 63,000 people, which is 6.7 per cent. of the target. As a result of that failure, many 16 to 24-year-olds will suffer and become infertile. I am delighted that we have had this debate. If we are honest—and we are probably not entirely honest with one other in the Chamber at the moment—we know what the problems are, but it is the solutions that are the challenge. Until the British people are given the opportunity to decide at an election whether or not the Government are, as I mentioned earlier, suffering from delusions, we must work with the Labour Government, so I urge the Minister to see whether she can come up with some solutions.