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Health: Obesity

My Lords, I, too, thank everybody for participating in this debate. I am glad that my throat virus did not prevent me being here. I do not intend to reply to all the points that have been made. However, I thank those who covered points other than the ones I made about sport and physical recreation. Food was the first one that came up. We also heard about the problems of alcohol with youngsters. There have been some very thoughtful contributions. I always enjoy the speeches made by the noble Lord, Lord Giddens. He referred to the problems of obesity in a more global way than I did and I learnt a great deal from what he said. I also enjoyed contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who is always here in debates relating to sport and physical recreation. I agree with the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Bradford and his daughter that the importance of this should not be put on children alone, or even parents alone, but on the environments in which they are brought up. The highest percentage of obesity is in those run-down estates. I would like to thank my old sparring partner, the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for his kind words. When I was shadow Minister for Sport in another place, I had to shadow five Ministers for Sport but he was by far the best. I have said that publicly before but I say it here in this House. However, I must correct him on his intervention in the Minister’s speech. We do know that 3,000 playing fields were sold off. When I debated this with the then Prime Minister, John Major, he agreed. We must place on the record that the Prime Minister of the day agreed that those had been sold off. Let us not have that from the noble Lord again because it is not the first time I have heard him say it. I thank the Minister for her thoughtful response to the debate and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his contribution. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.