Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow): I beg to move,
- That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the establishment of a national nutrition strategy; to provide development funding for Primary Care Trusts to address the issue of diet and obesity; to establish a minimum requirement for physical activity in schools; to develop a system of food labelling to enable consumers to identify high-fat foods and total calorie content; and to make it a requirement for health warnings to be displayed on all packaged convenience food with a high-fat or sugar content.
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow): I thank the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) for shortening his speech to allow me to contribute to this important debate on policing. I will devote my remarks to the good news, the bad news, the root causes and the solutions, and I have about 40 seconds for each. The good news is that Tower Hamlets has less crime than other inner city boroughs with less deprivation. The best news is that Tower Hamlets has been allocated an extra 147 police officers. That is an increase of 25%, which reflects the fact that ours was the most under-resourced borough in London. Other elements of good news include estate wardens and the reduction in reported crimes related to drugs, criminal damage and residential burglary.
Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow): I am delighted and relieved to have secured this debate on speech and language therapy provision, because, since my election in 1997, I have met many families who are waging a war with the system, trying to get their children the treatment that they need. I have asked for this debate to explain directly to the Minister the frustration and injustice that many of my constituents feel.
They believe, and I agree, that their children's education and life chances are being irreparably damaged because they cannot access speech and language therapy. I would like to set out the importance of speech and language therapy, which has a basic objective: to enable people to communicate. Without effective communication, people are excluded; not just from a social conversation, but from their families, their school environment and society. If children cannot communicate properly, they cannot be educated properly.
Speeches