Karin Smyth

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The pride in place programme does just as it says on the tin, and it is important. The Government’s drive is to make sure that those communities, which know best what they need, are the drivers of how that is done. We will think laterally and bring together all that they know about why there is that level of deprivation in those communities. I know that, with his experience as chair of a primary care trust and as a local councillor, my hon. Friend is well placed to see what needs to happen for us to bring things together and think laterally. In my community, the legacy of the tobacco industry is the source of so much of the long-standing inequality. The ICBs need to be tied into that community work and support it, and make sure that community health checks proactively identify people suitable for liver cancer surveillance. More widely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, our shifts, and particularly the transfer to community and neighbourhood health, absolutely support that agenda. I know that hon. Members will make sure that that agenda is well delivered. This disease lends itself very much to that drive, which we are determined to make happen. My hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West asked for us to be patient-ready for the next generation of liver disease medications. If my hon. Friend the Minister for Innovation, Lord Vallance, were here now, he would happily chew her ear off about everything that the Government are doing to ensure that the next generation of life sciences discovery is available to NHS patients. I will touch briefly on medicines later. My hon. Friend also asked about local food partnership funding and action on food affordability. I cannot go into those points in detail here, but we absolutely recognise them, and we are working closely with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to develop DEFRA’s cross-Government food strategy to provide healthier and more easily accessible food, particularly in deprived areas. I encourage my hon. Friend to ensure that she is completely aligned with that agenda, as I am sure she is. We want to make that work. On her call to enforce the 9 pm watershed, I will update the House on where we are in delivering our manifesto commitments. Prevention is clearly an important part of this work, and our manifesto specifically promised to restrict advertising of junk food to children, along with banning the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s. We are consulting until 26 November on that ban, and the restrictions on junk-food advertising will take legal effect on 5 January. I thank the advertisers and broadcasters who are doing the sensible thing in getting ahead of the regulations by applying the restrictions already. We have also restricted volume price promotions such as “buy one, get one free” on less healthy food and drinks, and given local councils stronger powers to block new fast-food outlets near schools. We will go further. Current promotion and advertising restrictions on less healthy food and drinks use an outdated nutrient profile model. That was formulated under the previous Labour Government, almost 20 years ago, because we also took this agenda seriously when we were last in government. We will update the standards that apply to the restrictions, and we will consult on their implementation in the coming year. In a world first, as per our 10-year plan, by the end of this Parliament all large food businesses will be required to report against standardised metrics on sales of healthier food. That means that the large food companies will have to tell us regularly how healthy the food they are selling is, and whether that is improving. That will set full transparency and accountability around the food that businesses are selling, and it will encourage healthier products. We will also set new targets to increase the healthiness of food sales in all communities. Finally, with regard to liver disease, we are exploring innovative approaches to early detection, such as intelligent liver-function testing, to reach more people at a stage when liver damage can better be reversed. Our focus is prevention—we have the shining example of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—but we do need to treat the millions of people who already live with obesity in the UK, so let me say what we are doing for them. First, we are building relationships with the biggest pharmaceutical companies to expand access to weight-loss services and treatments across the NHS. Secondly, obesity drugs can be game changers in supporting weight loss, and we are entering what could be a golden age for obesity drugs, with many more in the pipeline. Over the summer, the NHS started its roll-out of the weight-loss injection Mounjaro through GPs. About 220,000 people, prioritised by clinical need, are expected to receive Mounjaro on the NHS over the next three years. Thirdly, our obesity pathway innovation programme, supported by industry, is testing new ways of delivering that care, including through pharmacy-led services in the community and through digital services—again, part of our shifts. We recognise that these drugs are not a replacement for good diet and exercise, as exemplified by the hon. Member for Winchester, and they are not the first thing for patients or the NHS to try. That is why we have committed to doubling the number of people who can access the NHS digital weight-management programme. On hospital to home, we are providing treatment options for children by shifting care from hospital to community. That comes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West about the left shift. Earlier this year, the Government announced that we would support thousands of severely obese children to lose weight and live healthier lifestyles, thanks to the roll-out of specialist NHS clinics and new digital smart technology to deliver expert care at home. That game-changing tool is helping our specialists support and keep track of children’s weight-loss programmes, without those children needing to leave home, while offering regular advice to them and their parents to help build healthier habits. I have set out how the Government are tackling the obesity crisis head on, especially when it comes to safeguarding our children’s future, but while we are shifting the focus of our NHS to prevention, we are also doing more to help people who are already affected by obesity and fatty liver disease, especially through medicines and new technologies and by shifting care from hospital to home. We remember that we stood on a manifesto that committed to tackle the root causes of ill health and to close the gap between the richest and the most deprived areas. That is exactly what we are focusing on through our 10-year health plan. This Government will not sit by and let ill children become ill adults—not on our watch. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West for securing this debate.