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Health: Obesity

I hope that the Committee will allow me a little extra time in view of that intervention. The answer to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is that if voluntary measures do not work, we will indeed consider regulation. I need to make that clear. We have a ladder of intervention at our disposal. However, as I also emphasised to him earlier, we think that we can make progress faster by means of voluntary measures. The food labelling regulations, for example, are governed by EU law, and the noble Lord will know how long it takes to change EU law. If we can make progress more rapidly by voluntary measures in this country, I am sure that he would welcome that as everybody else would. On the other side of the coin, although equally important, is physical activity—the calories we burn rather than consume. My noble friend Lord McColl made some strong statements on that aspect of the issue but, as my noble friend Lord Addington indicated, physical activity is important in the wider context of people’s health. The public messaging on this clearly has to be balanced. We are currently reviewing the Chief Medical Officer guidelines on recommended levels of physical activity and we hope to publish those in the summer. Incidentally, I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Addington has underlined the importance of diet and exercise because I still believe that the two should be emphasised. Finally, we need to make sure that those who need it can get the specialist help to reduce and manage their weight effectively. Weight management providers will continue to play a key role in this area. I believe that through the new public health system, with the responsibility deal and Change4Life, we can truly make a difference over the next few years.