Hansard

We have travelled a great distance on tobacco, and action has been taken across a number of Administrations, which has been supported by many different parties. However, that does not mean that there is not more that we must do to tackle some of the choices that people make in life. We must understand that poverty is an underlying cause of some of the activities that we are discussing and the fatalistic approach that many people have as a result of a lack of aspiration and a lack of hope, but we must return to the fact that some of those consequences are driven by austerity and the welfare reforms that Brian Whittle’s party is pursuing.

We know that the pace of improvement is not quick enough. The challenges were set out by the late Campbell Christie, who challenged us to reform our public services in a way that would meet the needs of our population against a challenging fiscal backdrop. We must therefore prioritise prevention, reduce duplication and empower individuals and communities.

Early intervention is not only about action in the important early years. Public health policy contributes to many aspects of our lives at different ages and stages, so it is imperative that we get it right to deliver better outcomes for people and better value for the public purse. We can change our country’s health. In a country of just 5 million people, we must work together to do so, and that will require bold ideas and innovation.

Scotland has frequently led the way. The Parliament passed legislation that would allow for minimum unit pricing for alcohol. The Scottish courts have found the legislation to be lawful, and it is with much regret that we must now go to the Supreme Court on a matter that would save lives—in the past three years we could have seen more than 200 fewer deaths and more than 4,500 fewer hospital admissions.

Similarly, our efforts on smoking have been bold, and remarkable progress has been made across different Administrations. Just one in five adults smoke and the number of 15-year-olds who smoke regularly has dropped by more than two thirds in the past decade to the lowest level since surveys began. That is good progress towards achieving the goal of being tobacco free by 2034.

Despite the welcome news in the recent Scottish health survey that the proportion of children of healthy weight has increased in the past year to 72 per cent, and that for boys it has increased every year since 2011, the stats hide a widening gap between the well-off and the poorest children. There continues to be a problem. Obesity is and will remain a pressing issue that impacts not only on the health of individuals, but on the health of the nation.

As we did with alcohol, we need to follow the evidence and make the right decisions that will address the problem of excess weight and enable us to better support people to be more active, to eat less and to eat better.

This is a tough and sensitive issue. We all eat and attempts to address obesity will challenge all society. It again brings into sharp focus the devastating inequalities in our communities as people struggle not only with access to food, but with the resource to cook it.

Further to that, and—again—in the spirit of co-operation, perhaps when Brian Whittle and his party sum up, they might want to add their voices to our calls to the UK Government to ban junk food advertising until after the 9 pm watershed. The UK Government’s decision not to do that has led to significant disappointment across the stakeholder community that the opportunity to make a tangible difference to young people’s lives has been missed. If the Conservatives do not want to change the policy at the UK level, if we had the powers here, we could take that action.

As I prepare our obesity strategy and the consultation on it, I ask the Parliament to repeat what we have done on major public health challenges: find common ground, be brave in pursuing measures that give our children the best start in life and allow our whole population to make the best choices for themselves.

As part of pursuing that goal, we will continue the work started on public health reform. We will work with local government to agree a set of national public health priorities that will inform local, regional and national action.

Efforts to achieve a fairer Scotland are not solely a matter of getting people more physically active or helping them to find better nutrition. True health equality is approached by looking to the underlying socioeconomic drivers of poor outcomes. The fairer Scotland action plan, published in October 2016, features 50 concrete actions that this Government will take in this parliamentary term and beyond to make the changes that we need.

The strength of the plan comes not from any one action, but from the conviction that genuine fairness—human rights, equality, social justice and democratic renewal—needs to be realised to stop our communities feeling left behind and disempowered.

I move amendment S5M-03440.4, to insert at end:

“; believes that the forthcoming Scottish Government strategy on diet and obesity will be strengthened from contributions across the Parliament, and welcomes that the new strategy will be subject to consultation in 2017 to ensure that it is informed by the best evidence from across Scotland.”