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Obesity

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I accept that the Government could do more, and that is one of the main drivers of our next-stage review. Certainly, the staying healthy agenda is one major theme in the nine strategic health authorities. I have set them the priority of coming up with the best pathways and models of care to tackle this challenging issue of obesity. That will be evidence based, but I come back to the Foresight report, which is extremely nutritious in its evidence base of the challenges facing us and what to do about them. As I said, the 17 per cent reduction in the uptake of meals and the change in the nutrition and types of food that we are presenting is a cultural issue that we need to work on. As for changing the voluntary scheme into a mandatory one, the challenge there is that it will probably have to go through the EU. If a case could be made for doing that in the next few years, I have no doubt that it would impact not just on childhood obesity but on adult obesity as well.