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Finance Bill

As the deputy chairman of the all-party group on diabetes, I take a particular interest in the level of obesity in this country. I suggest to my hon. Friend that although the Government have, in order to keep medical bills down, made some strides to reduce the intake of individuals who consume too much, not enough has yet been done in that regard. A lot more could be done. I do not think that obesity measures are the reason that the volume of food sold has declined. The figures for April showed an overall increase of nearly 5 per cent., as I have said. That could well be attributed to changing patterns—to changes in the date of Easter, a time when retailers put on special promotions and people like to spend money because they are off work, and, of course, to changes in that favourite in the retail trade, the weather. In 2009, Easter was in April, but in 2008 it was in March so sales were typically lower the month after Easter than they were in Easter month. The weather this April, as hon. Members will remember, was balmily sunny, and many of them will have joined my family—well, they were not actually with my family, but they did the same thing as us—in having Easter lunch outside in the sunshine, which was something that we did not do in 2008. We managed to do it in April 2007, which presaged one of the wettest summers on record, and I hope that that is not a portent for this summer's weather. The weather this April was good, but the weather last April was bad, and those two factors may well account for a large part of the increase in overall sales. Indeed, Stephen Robertson, the director general of the British Retail Consortium, said as much. He said of the sales figures:""A sunny Easter that fell in April this year is the key reason why overall sales are up compared with last year when Easter was in March and miserable.""