Hansard

Local government is one of our partners in what we are trying to do. I was pleased when City of Edinburgh Council said that it would look again at those matters. I understand that that is still happening.

The delivery action plan shows the actions in which physical activity and sport can transform the lives of people of all ages and demographics. The actions in the plan include rolling out the daily mile across the country, doubling active travel budgets to £80 million to encourage walking and cycling for recreation and travel, increasing support for participation in sport by women and girls, giving £1 million for changing lives through sport and physical activity, and increasing funding support for older people who are in care settings to remain physically active. That is an important point in the amendment that Mr Cole-Hamilton will speak to later.

That is just a snapshot of the actions that we are taking and we will continue to work with academics and practitioners to learn from the evidence and shared experience of what works on the ground.

Physical activity is one factor in maintaining a healthy weight, but it is only one factor. In July—a busy month for me, as I was just in post—I also launched our diet and healthy weight delivery plan, “A Healthier Future”. It sets out a wide-ranging approach to tackling the nation’s weight problem.

Obesity is complex, but our aim is simple. We want to make it much easier for everyone across Scotland to eat well and be a healthy weight. The delivery plan has more than 60 actions, but today I will focus on three core priorities: transforming the food environment, giving children the best start in life and preventing type 2 diabetes.

On transforming the food environment, particularly promotions, as a nation, we consume too much food and drink that has little or no nutritional benefit and contributes calories or salt to our diet. These so-called discretionary foods include snacks such as crisps, sweets and chocolate. Half the sugar that is consumed in Scotland comes from that sort of food, so it is clear that we need to eat less of it.

It is, however, difficult to make healthier choices when we are constantly being bombarded with messages that encourage us to impulse-buy such foods and overconsume them. We want to change that. We are looking to restrict the in-store marketing and promotion of discretionary foods so that they cannot be sold on multibuy promotions or placed at checkouts, for example.

The consultation is already under way on a comprehensive set of proposals on which we would welcome feedback. As with all big public health interventions, we know that we need to take the public with us. The latest Food Standards Scotland data shows that around half of the public support restricting the promotion of unhealthy products, but we are not complacent. We will continue to make the case for change so that the consumer feels empowered to make healthier choices.

Transforming the food environment involves much more than that. For example, we are also supporting Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises to reformulate products and remove calories. We are urging the United Kingdom Government to ban the broadcast of advertising of high fat, sugar and salt foods before the 9 pm watershed. Food Standards Scotland will shortly publish its consultation on how restaurants, cafes, delivery services and others can support healthier eating by, for example, better calorie labelling.

Our ambition to halve childhood obesity gives our plan a strong preventative focus. Of course, all the changes to the food environment that I have talked about should improve the diets of children and their families, but there is much more that we can and must do. Early childhood and what happens before children are born are critical to the establishment of good nutrition and healthy eating. We will support parents pre-conception and in the early years on everything from pregnancy nutrition to breastfeeding and weaning. We will serve healthier food to children in early years settings at school, we will target services for families who need them where the child’s weight is a concern and we will continue to support children and families through school and the teenage years.

Although our overarching aim is to prevent children from becoming overweight or obese in the first place, we nevertheless recognise the current reality that being overweight or obese has become the norm for adults in Scotland. Along with that come the associated health harms and the significant pressures that they put on health services. Each year, we spend around 9 per cent of our total health expenditure on treating type 2 diabetes—a condition that is closely related to people being overweight and obesity. However, there is growing evidence that, with significant and sustained changes to diet and lifestyle, a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes can be reversed. That is why our third priority is our significant investment of £42 million over five years to tackle type 2 diabetes. In the summer, I also published a prevention framework that sets clear expectations of health boards and their partners to provide services to support those who have or are at risk of what are often avoidable conditions.

We can all unite on the issue in the worlds of health, communities and wellbeing. Politicians, policy makers, community leaders and medical professionals can unite around a programme of action that will add years to the healthy life expectancy of people in Scotland. Since July, we have already achieved a great deal with strong commitment from a wide range of local and national partners, but this is just the start. We need to continue to build leadership and momentum across the system. Such is the scale and nature of the problem that we want to ensure that we have the strongest possible plan of action for Scotland and for future generations, which means that we must continue to learn from others and evolve our thinking.

I therefore welcome our debate today and the tone of the amendments. I confirm that we will support the Conservatives’ amendment, which is in line with the strategies, and the Liberal Democrats’ amendment, which reflects a commitment that we have given and makes sense in the context. Unfortunately, we are unable to support the Labour amendment because it would remove reference to the two delivery plans. The asks in the Green Party amendment relate to budget matters, which we will come to later, but it is a good try.

I thank everyone for the constructive way in which I know that they intend to take part in the debate.