Labour ‘wont stand by while children become fatter’, Streeting says, in defence of ‘nanny state’ reforms
Labour said it won’t stand by “while children become fatter and unhealthier” as it defended its healthcare plans against “nanny state” accusations.
The Opposition party plans to introduce supervised toothbrushing for young children in free breakfast clubs if it wins the next general election.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting brushed off criticism that the party is seeking to create a “nanny state” on child health.
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Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, he said: “If the Conservatives want to throw around silly labels like ‘nanny state’, and then they’re going to throw much more mud than that in the run up to the election, I don’t think the public are going to buy that after 14 years of their failure.
“We’re not going to sit idly by while tooth decay sees so many children admitted to hospital.”
Talking about plans to reduce junk food ads and children vaping, he added: “We’re not going to sit idly by while children become fatter, more unhealthy, less happy; we’re going to take action on behalf of children across our country and I think that’s something parents across the land will support.”
Labour previously said it would bring in supervised toothbrushing in schools for children aged three to five, as well as an extra 700,000 dentist appointments, if it wins the election.
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer (centre right), with shadow health secretary Wes Streeting (centre left) speaking during a visit to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital
But the announcement drew criticism from teaching unions, with leaders saying it is “not the role of teachers to be making sure children brush their teeth each day”.
The party has now honed in on the detail of the plans, saying the “targeted” national supervised toothbrushing programme would be rolled out in “fully funded breakfast clubs”.
The clubs, funded by abolishing the non-dom tax status, will be introduced in every primary school so “every child is able to start the day with a healthy breakfast and parents are able to get to work”, Labour said.
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Other aspects of Labour’s child health action plan include introducing a 9pm watershed for junk food ads and banning vape adverts aimed at children.
The party has also pledged to introduce specialist mental health support for children in every school, cut waiting times for hospital care for children and to make sure child health is a cross-government priority.
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Sir Keir Starmer said children were “probably the biggest casualty” of the Tories’ sticking-plaster approach to politics over the past 14 years and that if the government were a parent, it could be charged with neglect.
His party have highlighted international research which shows British children are now shorter, fatter and less happy than their counterparts – with experts suggesting a poor national diet and austerity measures are stunting their growth.
Meanwhile tooth decay is still the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged between 6 and 10 years.
Sir Keir said tooth decay, stunted growth and a stalling life expectancy are “the reality of Tory Britain” and he is ready to make the case for state intervention to turn that around.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the Alder Hey visit the Labour leader said: “We need to take on this question of the nanny state. The moment you do anything on children’s health, people say ‘you’re going down the road of a nanny state’. We want to have that fight.”
He added: “Healthy, happy children is not a nice to have, it’s a basic right, with economic urgency.”
Lawmakers in the US states of Minnesota and Alabama filed companion bills to identical existing bills that if passed into law, would allow each state to buy Bitcoin.
The Minnesota Bitcoin Act, or HF 2946, was introduced to the state’s House by Republican Representative Bernie Perryman on April 1, following an identical bill introduced on March 17 by GOP state Senator Jeremy Miller.
Meanwhile, on the same day in Alabama, Republican state Senator Will Barfoot introduced Senate Bill 283, while a bi-partisan group of representatives led by Republican Mike Shaw filed the identical House Bill 482, which allows for the state to invest in crypto, but essentially limits it to Bitcoin (BTC).
Twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly name Bitcoin
Minnesota’s Bitcoin Act would allow the state’s investment board to invest state assets in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and permit state employees to add crypto to retirement accounts.
It would also exempt crypto gains from state income taxes and give residents the option to pay state taxes and fees with Bitcoin.
Source: Bitcoin Laws
The twin Alabama bills don’t explicitly identify Bitcoin, but would limit the state’s crypto investment into assets that have a minimum market value of $750 billion, a criterion that only Bitcoin currently meets.
26 Bitcoin reserve bills now introduced in the US
Introducing identical bills is not uncommon in the US and is typically done to speed up the bicameral legislative process so laws can pass more quickly.
Bills to create a Bitcoin reserve have been introduced in 26 US states, with Arizona currently the closest to passing a law to make one, according to data from the bill tracking website Bitcoin Laws.
Arizona currently leads in the US state Bitcoin reserve race. Source: Bitcoin Laws
Pennsylvania was one of the first US states to introduce a Bitcoin reserve bill, in November 2024. However, the initiative was reportedly eventually rejected, with similar bills also killed in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
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Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming are the five states thathave rejected Bitcoin reserve initiatives. Source: Bitcoin Laws
According to a March 3 report by Barron’s, “red states” like Montana have faced setbacks to the Bitcoin reserve initiatives amid political confrontations between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Additional reporting by Helen Partz.
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Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.
The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.
The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.
The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.
Source: Financial Services GOP
The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.
During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.
She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”
In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.
Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress
Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.
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The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.
Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.
Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”
Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.
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Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
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Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
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