Britain’s prime minister Sir Kier Starmer is set to bring in further ‘nanny state’ measures to help prevent ill health.

He gave the example of teaching children to brush their teeth properly while suggesting he could introduce more interventionist policies.

When asked about the smoking ban that he’s planning to introduce, he suggested further measures such as banning smoking in beer gardens.

The Mail Online reports: Asked if he was looking at taxing ultra-processed foods, or the salt and sugar content in products or increasing labelling to improve the public’s health, he did not directly respond.

But he cited the example of supervised tooth brushing before saying there were ‘other things that we will put out there for consultation’.

‘For six to 10 year olds, the most common reason for going into any children’s hospital is to have your teeth pulled out,’ he told journalists.

‘Now that’s what led us down the road of supervised tooth brushing, which some people said, well, “that’s the nanny state.”

‘But I’m afraid if the cost of not doing it is children actually losing their teeth before they’re 10 years old and or very, very good NHS staff having to use their skills to take teeth out instead of doing other things, then that seems to be a necessary measure.

‘I do think there are other things that we will, you know, put out there for the point of the consultation.’

Health Secretary Wes Streeting appeared to back the PM’s suggestion of introducing further nanny state measures, saying: ‘There’s always those choices and trade-offs about the benefits to public health, and then you know potential downsides that people raise, either believing that it’s too far an encroachment on people’s lives and liberties, or that it might impact on businesses, and you always have to weigh these things up, and we’ll do that.’

He added that the smoking bill would be ‘more ambitious’ than the one the previous government had been planning to introduce.