Speeches by Coleman.

“Where would you put this commissioner? Would you put them in the Department or in the Cabinet Office?”

“This Committee, sadly, does not have the power to effect change, but it has the power to influence change. Carole, on that point, you have talked about a commissioner for older people and ageing—somebody who could drag things across Government. How do you see that working and what difference would it make in ensuring t…”

“Take a Seat?”

“Where are the best ones that you are aware of?”

“You’d be lucky.”

“When you say a long period, do you mean three years, one year or 30 years?”

“Carole, do you agree with that?”

“We need lots of people to come together. Locally, you have councils and the NHS working together on these things—in theory. We have community and voluntary organisations that can do extraordinary things, but they need to be commissioned often. They do not have that much money, particularly these days. What needs to hap…”

“If you were to recommend the programme elsewhere, what would you say are its particular benefits or outcomes?”

“I am going to ask a question now; thank you, Chair—you see how briskly we are kept in order. A lot of interesting data has been shared with us. Age UK is running a health coaching programme. Can you tell us a bit more about that? I am particularly interested in the inequalities aspect, and why it was particularly benef…”

“Some of what you are saying—lifts breaking down and so on—depends on other people: landlords, local authorities and so on. Do you work differently with them as well? Do they buy into your programme from the beginning?”

“Yes it is, because we have a lot of meetings, and we rush from A to B, so “Gray’s Brisk Walking Guide”—I think we are doing that already.”

“To reassure you, I do not know whether you have spent any time in this citadel, but we all do thousands of steps. I do far more walking than I ever used to do before I was an MP—well over 6,000 a day.”

“I hope that you will get the chance to say everything you want to say.”

“Sir Chris, I am glad that you said there is something central Government can do, and I agree completely about local government and the opportunities there. Can this be done by the different Departments working together without a steer from the very top? Everybody shrugs off responsibility. However, if the Prime Ministe…”

“Will the hon. Member accept that there is now a general body of opinion that it is time to stop blaming people for not having the willpower not to eat bad food when they are constantly bombarded with advertising and marketing? Some £6.4 billion a year will be spent by the food industry on advertising and marketing to p…”

“I suggest to the hon. Member that one of the principal reasons that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease has shot up so radically in recent years is the increasing prevalence of food that is simply bad for people and is causing them damage—in particular, food that is high in fat, sugar and salt. For that reason, the Healt…”

“If I may bring the hon. Member back to childhood obesity, does she agree that there is a serious problem with sugar being pumped into so much baby food? Does she therefore welcome what the Government have finally done after many years of the issue’s sitting unaddressed? They are giving the industry 18 months to take th…”

“My remarks will be influenced by my membership of the Health and Social Care Committee, and by the fact that I am the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on black health. Also, like my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey), I have the pleasure of being a trade envoy: for Morocco and fra…”

“The hon. Member makes a very good point. I will run through a few more proposals from the maternity report, but they will not surprise Members; they are not radical or new. What would really be radical and new would be if one of these reports— I think I have read at least six reports about black people getting less goo…”