Jon Ashworth: A vote for Labour will ensure our children become healthier, happier and more successful

The Labour movement has a proud history of giving the next generation the best possible start in life.

Under Gordon Brown we worked hard to eradicate child poverty, setting ambitious targets to reduce child poverty to fewer than one in ten children by 2020. We passionately believe that every child deserves to reach their maximum potential.

That’s why the scandal of child ill-health is wholly intolerable. By comparison with other leading nations, our children are growing up unhealthy, unhappy and lacking sufficient investment in their health and wellbeing.

The statistics are truly shocking.

Recent figures from the Royal College of Surgeons show a 24 per cent rise in tooth extractions for under-fours over the decade to 2015-16.

Currently more than one in five children in their year of primary school are overweight or obese. This rises to one in three by the end of primary school.

Around 13 per cent of boys and 10 per cent of girls aged 11-15 have mental health problems including anxiety and depression, eating disorders, and hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder.

And breastfeeding rates in the UK are among the lowest in the world: just 44 per cent of mothers in England were recorded as breastfeeding at their six to eight week health visitor review in 2014/15.

Quite simply, this cannot be allowed to continue.

That’s why I’m determined to place children’s health and wellbeing at the heart of our nation’s health strategy.

The next Labour government will give our children the best possible start in life. We will end the scourge of child ill health with bold, decisive and targeted action aimed at making our children the healthiest in the world.

Our strategic focus will centre on four key indicators: obesity, dental health, under 5s and mental health. These will form the basis of a new index of child health to measure progress against international standards.

It’s a crucial goal because healthy children are more likely to grow into healthy adults, increasing economic productivity and reducing the burden on health services in old age.

That’s why this week we pledged to ban adverts promoting unhealthy food from being broadcast during primetime television such as the X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. This will reduce children’s viewing of junk food adverts by 82 per cent, making a substantial difference to the pressures parents regularly face to purchase unhealthy foods in the supermarket.

We have also committed to ring-fencing public health budgets over the course of the parliament to allow councils to invest in leisure activities and health awareness campaigns

And we will support school nurses and health visitors to ensure all children have access to the healthcare they are entitled to.

But this is just the start, because for too long our children haven’t received the attention they deserve. For the sake of their futures we must do better.

So my promise to you is this: A vote for Labour will ensure our children become healthier, happier and more successful.

Jon Ashworth is shadow health secretary and Labour candidate for Leicester South.