Former health tsar Henry Dimbleby has urged the government to publish its plans for a new National Food Strategy “as a matter of urgency” after a new report he co-authored revealed widespread cross-party support for tougher measures on the food industry.
Three former prime ministers and 10 former health secretaries are among a raft of former leaders backing action in the new report published today, written by Dimbleby and public health expert Dr Dolly van Tulleken.
It includes interviews with Tony Blair, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, who all say more must be done to tackle the obesity crisis.
The report, which also includes support from figures including former health secretary Sajid Javid, former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and the man who recruited Dimbleby, Michael Gove, claim successive governments have backed away from taking necessary action because of fears of a backlash over the ‘nanny state’.
The authors claim all of the former leaders regret having caved in to lobbying from the industry and opposition from hardline backbenchers, and wish they had taken “bold action”.
The report comes after The Grocer revealed last week that the government had delayed publication of plans for a new cross-departmental National Health Strategy to be announced last week because of the aftermath of anger over tax moves in the budget, which saw 10,000 farmers take to the streets of London.
Speaking on The Today programme this morning, Dimbleby urged the government to publish the plans as a matter of urgency, saying it was “absolutely what was required” to tackle the crisis.
The new report, Nourishing Britain: a political manual for improving the nation’s health, featured an “unprecedented” number of interviews with senior politicians who back tougher action on obesity.
It urges the government to “be bold and act fast” and says leadership from the prime minister is vital if the plans are to succeed.
In the report, Tony Blair calls for “bold, innovative steps, including shifting the focus of the NHS from cure to prevention”.
David Cameron says: “There is a lot more that government can and should do”. The report also quotes Boris Johnson, who rowed back from plans on obesity amid pressure from Tory backbenchers, despite a near-death experience with Covid, saying: “The government has to do something to try and deal with it. We can’t be indifferent to these levels of suffering.”
The report also quotes a series of former health secretaries from Labour and the Conservatives who express frustration at plans to tackle obesity being blunted by political opposition to the ‘nanny state’, from industry, the press and within government departments such as the Treasury.
”There was a lot of personal pressure on the prime minister in parliament, in the media and elsewhere, and I think that he was more in a mood to compromise with his backbenchers,” says Johnson’s former health secretary, Sajid Javid.
Former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn says: “Somebody asked me the other day, and it wasn’t a positive question, what the hell I did every day as the health secretary. My answer was: ‘I had an argument; every day, I had an argument.”
But Milburn adds: “There’s a point where it reaches a tipping point where the thing just becomes so enormous and so impactful that you’ve got to act. You get to that burning platform moment and I suspect that’s where we are.”
Dimbleby said the report showed the strength of cross-party support for action.
“Finally, politicians of all colours agree we haven’t done enough to tackle obesity,” he said.
“We now need their successors to learn from their experiences so they can avoid their mistakes and build on what works.”
Dr van Tulleken added: “I’m regularly asked why politicians can’t just fix the food system and reduce obesity rates. We spoke to many who tried. What is striking is that none of them, left or right, regret their efforts, but some wish they had done much more. Many faced fierce lobbying, or lost fights, or had to spend their political capital on other things. All of them think it’s a major policy challenge and urge the new government to act early and be bold.”
Ravi Gurumurthy, CEO of health nudge group Nesta, which published the report, said: “What this research reveals is an unusual cross-party consensus. Prime ministers and health secretaries from all parties wish they’d done more on obesity. They told us radical progress is possible and necessary.
“There is a window now to get this right. The public supports action to prevent disease and obesity. The left and right might disagree over the size of the state, but neither wants the state spending tens of billions a year on avoidable obesity-related conditions.”
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