NHS data published in November 2024 shows that 9.6% of reception-age children were obese in 2023-24, up from 9.2% in 2022-23, with children as young as two treated for obesity-related illness in England and experts warning of a public health crisis. Among children aged 10-11, the proportion who have obesity fell slightly from 22.7% to 22.1% but remained higher than the 2019-20 level of 21%. Recent research by the Food Foundation indicates that bad diet is causing a record amount of disability among people across the UK who are overweight or obese. NHS England has said that it was spending £6.5bn a year on treating obesity-related ill health across all age groups in England.

Labour, in its general election manifesto, committed to banning advertising junk food to children along with the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under-16s. The government intends to ban junk food advertisements from television before the 9pm watershed. It also aims to give local authorities enhanced powers to block the development of fast food outlets near schools to tackle obesity. Further measures are being examined by the government, with officials canvassing the public health sector for policy ideas, including on how to combat obesity, and ministers keen for the want the NHS to take a more proactive role on prevention. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that he is prepared to take “much bolder” action on preventing illness. “There’s diet, there’s healthy lifestyle, we are going to have to get into that space.” Since 2021, meanwhile, NHS England has established 30 specialist Complications from Excess Weight clinics designed for children aged between two and 18 with health complications related to severe obesity, providing specialist treatment and developing tailored care packages with families, which can include diet plans, mental health treatment and coaching, the NHS said.

The government has come under pressure to be bold on public health from chef and food campaigner Jamie Oliver, Henry Dimbleby, a co-founder of the Leon restaurant chain, who drew up Boris Johnson’s food plan, and Anne Longfield, former Children’s Commissioner for England. Oliver urged Keir Starmer to learn lessons from the success of some of the tough anti-obesity measures that have been implemented internationally, such as Amsterdam’s education of primary schoolchildren about healthy eating, restrictions on junk food packaging in Mexico and Chile, and Colombia’s sugar and salt taxes. Dimbleby advised the Prime Minister to regulate the food industry to force it to make its products healthier. He said: “If we are to move from treating sickness to preventing it, it is essential that we change the way we eat. Now is the opportunity for the government to introduce policies to ensure that everyone can access the foods needed to keep them healthy, and that the food industry is regulated to stem the relentless flow of junk food that has become a lethal cultural norm.” Longfield has proposed extending the sugar tax to sugar-sweetened drinks such as milkshakes.

This symposium will provide an opportunity for stakeholders – including healthcare professionals, schools, charities, and local authorities – to learn about existing efforts to reduce childhood obesity, evaluate the new Labour government’s commitments in this area, and assess the policy changes needed to tackle this growing public health challenge and improve diets among children.

Programme

• Understand the current state of childhood obesity in the UK, its trends, drivers, and impacts
• Evaluate the new Labour government’s plans for tackling childhood obesity
• Exchange best practice initiatives among local authorities, schools and the NHS for tackling childhood obesity  
• Compare the different approaches taken to tackle obesity across the four nations of the UK
• Assess how the NHS, regulators and other stakeholders can embed a more proactive, preventative approach to public health
• Exchange views on the bold, innovative changes required to significantly reduce levels of childhood obesity
• Examine the role played by NHS specialist clinics in treating and tackling childhood obesity
• Learn about and evaluate anti-obesity measures taken internationally

To register for the briefing, please click here.

In 2023, 67,337 applications for asylum in the UK were made, relating to 84,425 individuals. 33% asylum applications were refused at initial decision in 2023. The race riots that swept the UK in the summer of 2024 have shone a light on the extremely precarious situation that many asylum seekers and refugees in the UK are facing. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable.Thousands of teenage asylum seekers in the UK are thought to be spending up to a year out of education in a “no man’s land” due to schools being reluctant to accept them if they arrive after the start of the school year, according to a report by Refugee Education UK (REUK), with young asylum seekers left vulnerable to victimisation, trafficking and exploitation.

The Labour party, in its general election 2024 manifesto, asserted that the asylum “system needs to be controlled and managed and we need strong borders” and committed to creating a new Border Security Command, with hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers, in order to tackle the criminal gangs who are smuggling asylum seekers across the English Channel in small boats. Labour pledged to “restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly, and fairly; and the rules are properly enforced,” including by: hiring additional caseworkers to clear the backlog of asylum claims; setting up a new returns and enforcement unit, with an additional 1,000 staff, to fast-track removals to safe countries for people who do not have the right to stay in the UK; negotiating additional returns arrangements to speed up returns and increase the number of safe countries that failed asylum seekers can be sent back to; and working with international partners to address the humanitarian crises which lead people to flee their homes, and to strengthen support for refugees in their home region.

Minnie Rahman, Chief Executive of migrant and refugee charity Praxis has said that the scenes in summer 2024 of “asylum accommodation set alight in Rotherham and widespread destruction by the far right have been terrifying and deeply traumatising,” adding that “we must also realise that the anti-migrant feeling didn’t come from nowhere. When from the top down, our policies treat migrants as “other”, and the government uses them as a scapegoat for policy failures in housing, public services and the economy, the prejudice inevitably filters down.” Following the summer riots, 54 refugee organisations wrote to Labour Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, calling for urgent protections to be put in place for asylum seekers living in hotels who may be at risk from further far-right attacks. REUK, meanwhile, have highlighted the very limited number of programmes aimed at supporting the integration of refugee children, and have called for the government to include asylum seekers and refugees in its Children’s Wellbeing Bill, which aims to tackle school absences, and to introduce a strategy for speeding up the integration of these children into the education system. Diana Sutton, Director of the Bell Foundation, notes that schools feel “unprepared and unsupported” due to funding cuts and an “English as an additional language policy vacuum”.

This symposium will provide local authorities, charities, policymakers and other key stakeholders with an opportunity to discuss the state of asylum and refugee policy and the new Labour government’s plans for reforming the system, dissect British attitudes towards irregular migration, and assess what should be done to create a more humane system which adequately supports and protects asylum seekers and refugees seeking sanctuary in the UK.

Programme

• Learn about current trends and drivers in the flow of irregular migrants to the UK and existing government policy in this area
• Assess the new Labour government’s plans for processing asylum claims, managing the flow of irregular migrants, and tackling cross-channel people smuggling gangs
• Evaluate the treatment of and support provided to asylum seekers and refugees in the UK and how this could be improved  
• Develop strategies for better protecting, reassuring and providing practical and mental health support for asylum seekers and refugees following the summer 2024 UK race riots
• Exchange views on the scope for increasing the number of legal routes available to asylum seekers wishing to settle in the UK and how asylum applications can be simplified and made more accessible
• Consider UK refugee numbers in an international context and the UK’s status as an international outlier with regard the indefinite detention of irregular migrants
• Discuss the role that greater international cooperation and burden sharing can play in managing the flow of irregular migrants and supporting asylum seekers 
• Examine attitudes in the UK towards asylum seekers, refugees and irregular migrants and the role that education, the media, social media and politicians play and should play in this regard

To register for the briefing, please click here.

Join us for the launch of this timely report, commissioned by the Greater London Authority and produced by Protection Approaches, exploring the critical role of social cohesion in enhancing community resilience.

Based on in-depth research including consultation with over one hundred community and faith organisations in London, the report draws from the capital’s diverse experiences to offer insights with broad implications for resilience-building across the UK.

Date: Monday 2^nd December

Time: 2pm-3pm

Location: Zoom

Register online now.

Book your places at the National Supporting Autistic People and People with a Learning Disability Conference 

The National Supporting Autistic People and People with a Learning Disability Conference 2024 will seek to foster a deeper understanding of the challenges that autistic people and people living with a learning disability experience, advocate for inclusivity and support and demolish the barriers preventing individuals the opportunity to thrive and succeed.

Delegates will have the opportunity to exchange insights, experiences, and best practices through a series of discussion and debate sessions during the plenary sessions with further interaction facilitated through casual networking breaks..

Further info & booking