Cabinet Committee Appointed to Eat the Biscuits
LONDON, England, 30 October 2026 (The London Prat) — The Labour government has announced a historic campaign to end England's obesity epidemic, although MPs have discovered an oversight: nobody has said what success looks like, how anyone would measure it, or when any of it is supposed to start.
It's the boldest assault on a national problem since British Rail declared war on late trains by removing the clocks.
Health Committee Has "No Faith" in the Obesity Moonshot
The Health and Social Care Committee, after more than a year of taking evidence in its inquiry into food and weight management, says it has "no faith" in the government's ten-year obesity "moonshot" without a coherent plan, measurable milestones and leadership from the prime minister. In other words, Whitehall has built a rocket, printed the commemorative mugs and forgotten to install an engine.
The mission has already achieved one result: public confidence has lost three stone.
A snap survey of 2,000 adults this week found that 71 per cent could not say what the moonshot was, 18 per cent believed it was a new flavour of crisp, and 11 per cent asked whether it came in a multipack.
A Cabinet Committee on Obesity, With Catering
MPs want Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make obesity his personal mission and have proposed a cabinet committee to coordinate the response. This is Westminster's solution to every national emergency: take a problem, put twelve people in a room, and see whether it survives the sandwiches.
A cabinet committee on biscuits would be perfectly suited to the task. Ministers could discuss portion control over a working breakfast, healthy choices over a buffet lunch, and the urgent danger of processed snacks while searching for the chocolate digestives.
Minutes would record that all members supported immediate action, subject to consultation, funding, impact assessments and the arrival of the second tea trolley.
Nobody could leave until the committee defined "light refreshments".
Minutes of a preliminary meeting of officials, seen by The London Prat, show that the first forty minutes went on the agenda and the next forty on whether the agenda could be circulated in advance. Item four, "Obesity", was deferred to the next meeting. No date has been set for the next meeting.
England's Obesity Figures: 30% of Adults and a £74 Billion Bill
The trouble is that obesity is a serious public-health issue. The latest official Health Survey for England found that 30% of adults were living with obesity in 2024, while 66% were overweight or living with obesity. Those are actual figures, not the number of civil servants required to approve a salad.
Meanwhile, a parliamentary report puts the wider economic cost at no less than £74.3 billion a year, and the Institute for Fiscal Studies lands on a similar number. For that money, Britain could buy an astonishing quantity of vegetables, although the Treasury would presumably need six years to agree whether a tomato is a fruit, a vegetable or an undeclared luxury.
Labour's Obesity Strategy Discovers the Calorie Content of Bureaucracy
Ministers point to restrictions on junk-food advertising and promotions, stronger council powers over takeaways near schools, and expanded access to weight-management support. Those are real measures. But the committee says the overall ambition still lacks the targets and machinery needed to judge progress.
Westminster's instinct is to regulate the nation's snacks before auditing its own appetite for paperwork. A supermarket can tell you how many calories are in a packet of crisps. Ask Whitehall how much a government initiative will achieve and the answer is usually, "We are developing a framework."
The obvious next step is a tax on government stupidity. Unfortunately, Treasury officials would reject it on the grounds that a levy generating that much revenue might distort the entire economy.
An impact assessment would conclude that ignorance is a vital British export.
Asked about the committee's findings, a Downing Street spokesperson said the prime minister takes obesity extremely seriously and will respond in due course. Asked when due course was, the spokesperson said that was a matter for the response.
Why a Biscuit Advert Ban Is Not an Obesity Treatment Plan
The committee has also highlighted an important distinction between preventing obesity and treating people already living with it. That's a sensible point. Banning a biscuit advert can't substitute for medical support, any more than banning travel brochures can fix a broken leg. The Royal College of Physicians has said much the same about weight-loss drugs: useful, but no substitute for bold action from government.
Yet political announcements prefer the delicious simplicity of announcing that something will end in ten years. Ten years is ideal. It's close enough to sound urgent and distant enough for everyone involved to be working somewhere else when the invoice arrives.
The National Weigh-In: What a Real Obesity Plan Needs
So here is a radical proposal: ministers should publish a clear objective, annual milestones, departmental responsibilities and a funded plan. The committee has already asked for precisely that kind of accountability. Nobody gets to name a spaceship until they've done it.
And if the government insists on calling its policy a moonshot, somebody should check that the rocket contains more than a laminated mission statement and four packets of custard creams.
Britain doesn't need another war on fat conducted from a conference room. It needs an obesity strategy capable of standing on its own two feet.
Preferably before the committee orders pudding.
Five Observations on the War on Fat
- A national crisis, and the government's first move is a meeting with sandwiches. That's not a strategy. That's my aunt's house on a Sunday.
- Ten years to fix it. Ten years! I can't get a plumber in ten days. The only people who plan a decade out are people who know they'll be at a think tank by then.
- They called it a moonshot. Great. The moon, famously, is the one place nobody goes to lose weight. And NASA at least had a launch date.
- "We are developing a framework." Every time I hear that I picture a man in a lanyard holding up an empty picture frame and nodding.
- A laminated mission statement. You know what's in a laminated mission statement? Nothing. It's the salad at a wedding. Everybody sees it, nobody touches it, and it's still somehow on the invoice.
Sources: UK Parliament Health and Social Care Committee; NHS England Health Survey for England 2024; parliamentary report on obesity treatment; 10 Year Health Plan for England; Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Disclaimer: This article contains no calories, no targets and no plan, which makes it fully compatible with government obesity policy. It is political satire, best read with a biscuit. https://prat.uk/?p=54607
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