Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on the UK Government giving unemployed people weight-loss jabs to get them back to work

Unemployed people living with obesity in the UK could receive weight-loss jabs to help get them back into work.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced a £280 million investment from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to develop new treatments to combat the rising obesity epidemic. 

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says illnesses relating to obesity cost the NHS billions every year - with negative outcomes set to impact the economy.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Give a duples work with us now.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Gavin Gray are UK correspondent, Evening Gevin.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi the heather.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Now, when I first heard that there was this idea
of maybe giving the people on the doll the fat jeb,
I thought this is not for real. But this is
for real, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Yes, very much so. And it's the second a thing
that the current labor government have done all about supposedly
getting people back to work. So in this particular instance,
they're saying obesity is costing the national Health Service in
the UK twenty four billion New Zealand dollars a year,
and it's getting worse. And that is something that is

(00:37):
obviously terrifying because diabetes is expensive to try and cure
and stop and and the situation seems to be getting
worse very rapidly. But this idea that actually obesity is
leading to many many people not being able to work
who want to work, is something that's relatively new. There
have been no studies suggesting, incidentally this happens. And yet

(01:02):
the company Eli Lilly, the one of the world's largest
pharmaceutical companies, if not the biggest, is investing in the UK.
That was announced on Monday, and now we learn that
the same company will be responsible and tied up in
a deal along with another company producing a zepiic, a
well known loss weight loss drug, in combining with the

(01:24):
UK government to try and give these weight loss jobs
to those who were jobless, saying it will benefit the
economy because it will reduce the number of sick days
caused by obesity. Now two questions here that The first
is how much is this tie up costing. We're not
being told that, only that it came off the back
of this investment on Monday. But secondly, there are no

(01:45):
figures suggest that this will get people back to work,
just as incidentally, there are no figures when the government
announced it was going to try and massively reduce the
waiting lists on the National Health Service that that would
increase work output. Either the government is saying yes, that's
going to massively help and make us more productive as
a society. I strongly have this suspicion that actually the

(02:08):
percentage of people who will go back to work after
this fat job, as it's called, a number of people
who will go back to work once they've had their
operation on a waiting list is much smaller than the
government is predicting. Might well be the case.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Just one of those things that sounds nice to the base,
doesn't it. Now, what about the smartphones? Do you reckon
you guys will actually get there and ban them from schools.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yes, they are banned in a lot of schools already
after guidance from the government, but now particular MP is
really spearheading a campaign to make it law. Now it
would only be in England because schools in Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland have their own legislation and owned governance
by the local government there. But they really want to
make this law and MPs could really debate these new

(02:54):
proposals early in the new year. And these sort of
private members bills where an individual MP puts something forward,
do rarely make it into law without government backing. But
it looks like the government is potentially going to give
it back into this because where this schools have taken
the phones off pupils at the start of the day

(03:15):
and given them back to them at the end of
the day. They are saying they are noticing a massively
increased attention span for those children. Originally many very reluctant,
but it's looking like a pretty good job. So they
want a mobile free zone at school's age. Online companies
can receive data consent from children with that permission should

(03:35):
be raised and another of a number of other measures
to strengthen the legislation and enforcement codes for those who
have those apps and services.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I hope you guys do it, because it's one
of the best things you could possibly do for children. Now,
what's going on here with the bottles of wine?

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yes, story out that somebody and when you consider it,
it's so simple. Somebody's been buying very cheap bottles of
wine and has printed off labels that come from very
expensive wines and slap them on the cheap bottles of wine.
See how easy it is. And a gang of six people,
including a Russian national, believed to be the suspected ringleader,

(04:14):
have been arrested across three cities in France and Italy. Now,
some of the single bottles of wine were sold off
as quality bottles worth up to twenty eight thousand New
Zealand dollars, so we're talking some serious, serious money being made.
It was said that earned at least four million New
Zealand dollars from the fraud, and a forty eight year

(04:36):
old Russian national. They're saying is the suspected ringleader. They
say they're going to charge them that a large amount
of bottles had gone through this particular route. And of
course often people buy a very expensive bottle and then
don't open it for a number of years, by which
time very difficult to prove where you got it from.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
He don't give it anyone any ideas. Kevin, thank you
so much much. Look at yourself. Talk to you in
a couple of days. It's Kevin Gray are UK.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
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