Dr. Howard Stoate: May I congratulate the Foresight team on its excellent report and pay particular tribute to the work of the Minister for public health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), who made an excellent speech at the launch this morning? I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State understands the frustration of people like me, who know how difficult it is to tackle this enormously complex problem of obesity, and that, like me, he recognises that the Government cannot solve the problem on their own. A whole societal approach is necessary, involving literally everyone in the country. Will he consider my wish list of the day? First, will he consider introducing a mandatory labelling scheme that could be agreed across the board—irrespective of whether individual supermarkets like it or not? Next, will he commit to having a school nurse in every single school, which would make a huge difference to the public health of the nation? Also, can I ask him to be even tougher on food advertising to children, particularly in respect of foods high in fat, salt and sugar, as that alone could make a considerable difference?

Alan Johnson: I thank my hon. Friend for his customary constructive comments and for giving us a good lead-in during Prime Minister's questions. I join him in congratulating our right hon. Friend the Minister for public health and, indeed, the Minister for sport and the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, all of whom were signatories to the report's foreword. My hon. Friend makes a very important point about the inability of Governments alone to tackle the problem. The report makes that point repeatedly and eloquently, which will provide a huge boost to my hon. Friend's other point about the need to convince those involved of the need to produce a better food labelling scheme. I am not saying that I am going to push anyone into anything, but as Bob Dylan once said,

      “You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.”

As far as school nurses are concerned, we cannot commit to one for every school, but our plans relate to clusters of schools and we intend to follow our successful approach to school sport. We want the expertise to be present in order to benefit a number of schools in an area.

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