Queen's Speech 2021 - Prevention

“Measures will be brought forward to support the health and wellbeing of the nation, including to tackle obesity...”

• Our health is our most important asset. COVID-19 has highlighted the immense costs of ill-health, particularly to the most vulnerable in our society. People who are overweight or living with obesity are more at risk from severe illness and death from COVID-19.

• We are living longer but spending a fifth of our lives in poor health. We must do better. Looking towards the future we cannot hope to achieve better outcomes by doing more of the same.

• Our health is shaped by many factors including the conditions in which we live; the choices we make; and the services we receive. We need a robust public health system that can respond to the complex, twenty-first century challenges to health such as obesity, poor air quality, substance misuse, smoking, mental illness and inactivity.

• Individually and collectively, we can act in ways that will help us to live longer in good physical and mental health.

• The majority of health outcomes (around 80 per cent) are not related to the healthcare people receive but due wider factors, such as their diet and exercise levels. The policy levers to empower people to make healthy choices sit across many different Government departments.

• The new Office for Health Promotion will work across the Government to improve health. It will help the whole health system focus on delivering greater action on prevention, and will drive and support the Government to go further in improving health.

  Obesity

  • Helping people to achieve and maintain a healthy weight is one of the most important things we can do to improve our nation's health. Making healthier choices easier and fairer for everyone, and ensuring the right support is there for those who need it is critical in tackling obesity.

  • We published a new Healthy Weight Strategy in July 2020 and are providing £100 million extra funding for healthy weight programmes to support children, adults and families to achieve and maintain a healthier weight.

  • The Government will restrict the promotions on high fat, salt and sugar food and drinks in retailers from April 2022. The Health and Care Bill will include measures to ban junk food adverts pre-9pm watershed on TV and for a total ban online.

• The Government will introduce secondary legislation to require large out-of-home sector businesses with 250 or more employees to calorie label the food they sell.

• We are funding a health incentives and reward approach (‘Fit Miles’) to support people to eat better and exercise more. The work will draw on the very best innovation in the public and private sector to test the role that rewards and incentives can play in encouraging healthier behaviours. We are also offering greater support through GPs, so that anyone with obesity can get support from their GP and referrals to weight management services.

  Air Quality

• Air pollution affects people throughout their life. The Government supports approaches which minimise or mitigate public exposure to air pollutants, address inequalities, and maximise co-benefits (such as physical exercise).

• The Government is delivering a £3.8 billion plan to clean up transport and tackle N02 pollution and going further in protecting communities from air pollution, particularly PM2.5 which is especially harmful to human health.

• Through the Government’s landmark Environment Bill, we are also setting ambitious new air quality targets, with a focus on reducing public health impacts.

  Smoking

• The reduction in smoking rates - currently at 14 per cent of adults in England, the lowest level on record - is a great public health success story. However, we must not be complacent. We have set a bold ambition to be smokefree in England by 2030, and we will publish a new Tobacco Control Plan later this year with a focus on levelling up health outcomes. Smoking rates remain stubbornly high in certain areas of the country and for certain groups. We must focus on driving down smoking rates right across the country and ensure no community is left behind.

• The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated many smokers to consider quitting. This is why we made additional funding available to bolster the Quit for Covid campaign to enable the stop smoking message to reach as many smokers as possible.

  Drugs

• The Government is looking forward to the imminent publication of Part Two of Dame Carol Black’s Independent Review of Drugs and the recommendations it will make on how to reduce the demand for illegal drugs.

• Through targeted enforcement we are dismantling the criminal supply chains for illicit drugs. We have already rolled up around 700 county lines, and plan to go further to disrupt the activities of suppliers and importers of illegal drugs.

• This year the Government announced the largest investment in treatment in 15 years with Project ADDER: a new, targeted approach which will ramp up local enforcement, while at the same time diverting more people into treatment and recovery.

• The Government is committed to developing a long-term approach setting out how to tackle the supply and demand of illicit drugs and testing approaches to reducing harmful recreational drug use.

  Key Facts

  Obesity

  • Today, over 6 in 10 adults, and more than 1 in 3 children aged 10 to 11, are overweight or living with obesity.

  • Obesity is associated with reduced life expectancy. It is a risk factor for a range of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, at least 12 kinds of cancer, liver and respiratory disease, and mental health.

  • The number of children admitted to hospital for obesity and related conditions has quadrupled in the last decade. Individuals who are obese in their early years are more likely to become obese adults.

  • The Government is investing up to £35 million into the Breakfast Club Programme, to kick-start or improve clubs in up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas. We provide healthy free school meals to around 1.4 million disadvantaged children, as well as free meals to all infant children, and we are working with Public Health England to update the school food standards to reduce sugar.

  • We have doubled the PE and Sport Premium for primary schools to £320 million a year, already benefiting more than 1,800 schools; and we established a new £100 million healthy pupils capital fund in 2018-19, to increase access to facilities for physical activity and healthy eating.

  • This year's expanded Holiday Activities and Food programme will be available to children in every Local Authority in England, building on previous programmes since 2018 - including last year’s summer programme, which supported around 50,000 children across 17 Local Authorities.

• Between 2015-19 the average sugar content of soft drinks was reduced by 44 per cent. The Government has also been successful in bringing about a 13 per cent reduction of sugar in breakfast cereals, yogurts and fromage frais.

• Primary care has a vital role in helping treat people with obesity and we will be offering greater support to GPs and patients to offer referrals to weight management services to anyone with obesity.

  Drugs

• 4,393 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2019 in England and Wales. There has been a 52 per cent increase in drug-related deaths in the past 10 years. In 2019, there were 1,406 drug-related deaths in Scotland, which is the largest number ever recorded and almost double the number recorded a decade ago.

• On 20 January 2021 a £148 million package to tackle drug misuse was announced. It will provide extra resources to the police and National Crime Agency to dismantle organised criminal gangs, tackle the supply of drugs and deliver the biggest uplift in drug treatment in 15 years. We would expect roughly 5,000 additional people to receive treatment as a result.