Starmer to place nanny state at heart of Labour’s child reforms
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Labour has vowed to “fight for the nanny state” to protect Britain’s children, under a raft of reforms.
Children will be jabbed at home in a bid to boost vaccination rates under plans involving thousands more health visitors being trained and given expanded roles, The Telegraph can reveal.
Sir Keir Starmer will announce the measures on Thursday as part of a Child Health Action Plan, which will also promise breakfast clubs for every primary school, supervised toothbrushing, a 9pm watershed for junk food adverts and a ban on vape adverts aimed at children.
Highlighting international research which shows British children are now shorter, fatter and less happy than their counterparts, Labour pledged to “end the scandal of children being held back by poor health”.
Sir Keir said his party was happy to be accused of planning nanny state interventions, and accused the Government of the “neglect” of a generation.
He said: “I know that we need to take on this question of the nanny state. The moment you say you want to do anything on child health, people say you’re going to have a load of nanny state. We want to have that fight.”
Uptake of childhood vaccinations has plummeted since the pandemic, with latest figures showing falling rates in 12 out of 14 childhood jabs, including MMR, during 2022/23.
Cases of measles have more than tripled in England over the last year, official figures show.
Under the plans, the role of health visitors will be expanded, so such staff can administer jabs, instead of just urging parents to take their children to the GP, with a doubling in the number of staff trained annually. Official figures show the number of health visitors in post in England has almost halved since 2015, with 4,400 fewer in post.
Sir Keir said Labour would “give children the best possible start in life by protecting children from diseases which belong in the history books”.
“My Labour government will train thousands more health visitors and undertake radical reforms of the NHS, to boost vaccinations and set children on the right path for life.”
The plans will mean a free breakfast club in every primary school, as well as supervised toothbrushing for 3 to 5 year olds in areas with the worst decay.
Asked about the role of parents and parents in deciding what children should eat, and when they should brush their teeth, Sir Keir said: “Obviously we want to encourage good parenting, but I don’t think we can just turn our back on this.
“And one of the proposals we put out there is supervised toothbrushing, for three to five year olds and lots of people go, ‘oh that’s nanny state’.
“I have to say when I first read the statistic that for six to 10 year olds, the biggest cause of admissions to hospital is decayed teeth, I was really struck.
“That is shocking and I don’t think we should say that isn’t any of our business, that is our business. Just to sort of walk on the other side and say ‘it’s not my responsibility, who cares’, I’m up for that fight.”
He added: “Tooth decay, stunted growth and stalling life expectancy should be consigned to the history books, but instead they’re the reality of Tory Britain.”
Launching the plans on Thursday at a leading children’s hospital, Labour will highlight research showing British children are fatter, shorter and far less happy than their peers.
NHS data shows 22.7 per cent of children in England are obese by the time they finish primary school, with far higher obesity levels than those found in France, Germany, Poland and Slovenia.
Meanwhile, British teenagers are among the least happy in the world, with research on 15 major Western nations placing them second bottom only to Japan.
Just 57.1 per cent of 15-year old students agreed that their life had “clear meaning or purpose” compared with 66.6 per cent of those in Italy and 71.5 per cent of those in France.
Children in other Western nations are growing far taller than those in Britain.
Health experts have said the modern diet, with heavy reliance on junk food, means many children are growing up malnourished, stunting their height.
The height of the average British five-year old girl has fallen by 27 places in international rankings over the last three decades, with British girls now shorter than girls in Portugal, Turkey and Brazil, international rankings show.
The average British five-year-old boy has fallen by 33 places on the height league table, with boys in Egypt, Haiti, Ukraine and Argentina all taller on average.
Back in 1989, five-year-old girls in the UK were 111.1cm tall on average, the 69th-tallest cohort in the world, according to research by NCD Risk Factor Collaboration.
Thirty years later, in 2019, while they had grown to 111.7cm, thanks to faster growth rates among international peers they fell 27 places to 96th in the rankings. This means British girls are now shorter than those in Portugal (113.1cm), Turkey (113.4cm) and Brazil (113.6cm).
The average British five-year-old boy has fallen by 33 places on the height league table, from a 71st-placed 111.6cm, down to a 102nd-placed 112.5cm. Boys in Egypt (117.2cm), Haiti (116cm), Ukraine (116cm) and Argentina (114.2cm) are now all taller on average.
Labour said the plans would be funded by the abolition of non-dom status. Pledges to increase the number of health visitors trained from 770 to 1,340 a year already make up part of its plans to expand the NHS workforce.
Sir Keir said his party was focusing on child health because children were “probably the biggest casualty of sticking plaster politics in the last 14 years”.
“Frankly, if this was a parent that treated children this badly, as badly as the UK Government, they’d probably be charged with neglect,” he said.
Commenting on Labour’s plans for toothbrushing, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “While it’s good to see that supervising toothbrushing won’t be a part of the school day itself, or an expectation of teachers, we remain somewhat sceptical about how this will work in practice.
“Questions remain about access to the facilities required to make this proposal work and the staffing implications for breakfast clubs.”
Andrea Leadsom, the Public Health Minister, said: “Given Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘blueprint’ for the country is a record of failure, he should focus on fixing his own house before criticising others.
“In Wales, Labour is overseeing the longest hospital waits in Great Britain, are the only administration to have cut the NHS budget since 2010, have underfunded the NHS and consistently fail to meet targets.
“Labour’s unfunded promises on healthcare in England would cost taxpayers billions, in addition to the £28 billion a year by 2030 spending promise they have already committed to and would inevitably hike up taxes to fund.
“This is the same old Labour of more spending and more taxes. The Conservative Government is taking the long-term decisions to protect the health of future generations – including creating a new smokefree generation, protecting all our children from harmful vaping and creating family hubs across England to support every family to give their baby the best start for life.”
A government spokesman said: “We’ve taken significant action to improve children’s health both now and in the long term.
“This includes dramatically reducing sugar in children’s foods, investing over £600 million to improve the quality of sport for children, and encouraging healthy diets for families from lower income households through schemes like Healthy Start.
“We’re also investing an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services, the number of children seen by NHS dentists rose by 14 per cent last year, and we’re taking steps to reduce youth vaping and introducing the first ever smokefree generation.
“Cutting waiting lists is one of the Government’s top five priorities. Despite ongoing pressure on the NHS, we have cut the total waiting list and the number of individual patients waiting for treatment compared to the previous month.”
