Speeches by Hamilton.

“On behalf of the Health and Social Care Committee, it is a pleasure to present to the House our fifth report of this Parliament, which is on the subject of the first 1,000 days of life. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for this statement. We chose this subject because this period of life is …”

“Right; I like that. Over to you, Beth.”

“I realise I have got another minute or so. This is a personal thing that I am passionate about: at Christmas, for the first time ever, I saw the retailers seem to come together. Most retailers were selling the fruit and vegetables that you would have on your Christmas table for 5p. Some went up a little bit further, bu…”

“So you don’t think we’ve got to the end. What about you, Liz?”

“Thank you for being honest.”

“I am going to stop you there and go back to you, Nilani. You were the only one to talk about enforcement. Why have you highlighted that?”

“We talked about voluntary measures. Do you think we are at the end of what we can do with them—yes or no? Is there more we can do?”

“So you think we’ve got as far as we can with people doing things voluntarily.”

“That is a fantastic place to stop, and I will hand back to the Chair. [Interruption.] Did I miss anybody? I apologise, Oonagh—I’ll ask you.”

“I need you get to the point, or we are going to run out of time.”

“You are just reading from a list. Just answer the question, please.”

“Pragmatism, and what is the final point?”

“Whole-systems approach. Thank you very much. Over to you, Oonagh.”

“Right. My final question is: do you feel that the Government should concentrate more on mandatory reporting than it currently does, and where do you think that would place your organisations? I am going to start with you, Oonagh.”

“Brilliant. Over to you, Oonagh.”

“Good morning, all. Let me set the scene. Between 1993 and 2022, the proportion of adults living with obesity rose from 14.9% to 28.9%. The proportion who either were overweight or living with obesity rose from 52.9% to 63.9%. With that in mind, it has been suggested that voluntary initiatives have failed to reduce the …”

“So you do think we should move towards mandatory rather than voluntary?”

“Liz? Please be succinct.”

“Has anything changed in your structure since last June? If it has happened before, can it not happen again?”

“You can’t change the structures in your organisation?”