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Miss Lestor: I will not go out on a note of discord. All that I will say is that it was wrong to abolish free school milk, because milk is essential to the diet of all our children.
Mr. Burns: I am grateful to the hon. Lady.
To get off controversial political issues, I turn to food and the national curriculum, which the hon. Lady mentioned. Food is now a compulsory part of the design and technology curriculum up to key stage 2. It is a voluntary topic in key stage 3. Nutrition is already a specified part of the science curriculum, so children are now assured of a better grounding in nutrition than ever before.
As in so many other things in life--such as the age-old problem of litter and the problem of drink-driving--good nutrition requires a process of education. A lost generation of parents in their 20s and 30s are not interested in nutritional balance in the diet, so they are not the people best qualified to provide guidance to their children at home on a properly balanced diet.
As the hon. Lady rightly said about the school education system, we may have to educate people from the bottom up through their children. That is important. The nutrition components of the curriculum at key stages 2 and 3 are a way of seeking to undo some of the damage that has happened, because a lost generation of parents all too often take the easy option. Now Kentucky fried chicken and Big Macs and other hamburgers are popular. When I was a teenager, the less glamorous fish and chip shop provided almost the only source of fast food.
When I was at school, school food was notorious for its poor quality and variety. Although life has probably improved, I suppose that it has not done so all that dramatically. At my school, if it was Monday it was Irish stew. If it was Tuesday, it was minced beef. If it was Wednesday, it was Irish stew with a pastry top. If it was Thursday, it was shepherd's pie. If it was Friday, it was
fish fingers. If it was Saturday, it was something cold, such as spam or ham. If it was Sunday, we got roast beef, roast lamb or sometimes roast chicken, depending which Sunday of the month it was. The quality was appalling. The variety was non-existent, because there was no choice.
Most children will vote with their feet if they do not like the food that is put before them. They refuse to eat it. They go out and spend their money on fast food, or badger their parents to buy it for them. It is easier for some parents to take that option than to go through all the trouble of preparing and cooking vegetables and meat, or whatever, at home, then sitting down and eating it and clearing up afterwards. It is easier to go to a fast food outlet and buy meals with few nutritional benefits for children or adults.
Mr. Colvin:
I am interested in what my hon. Friend is saying about fast food and the importance of school meals. I happen to represent a constituency--or rather, I hope to represent the constituency after the election--in which one of the largest apple farms in the country, run by the John Lewis Partnership, is situated. We produce Cox's orange pippins.
There is a good case to be made for ensuring that an apple a day is on the menu of every child in school. It is an old adage, I know, that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but it is true. It is also important that the apples distributed in schools are British, not apples drawn in from continental suppliers, under whatever name. There is nothing like an apple a day, and it ought to be a Cox's orange pippin.
Mr. Burns:
My hon. Friend is extremely fortunate to have such an orchard in his constituency.
Mr. Colvin:
Constituency-to-be. We have had a boundary change.
Mr. Burns:
I am sorry. I am about two weeks ahead of my time--or six weeks.
I am sure that the owners of the orchard will have heard his comments today. I was brought up on an apple a day to keep the doctor away. I agree that there is a great deal to be said for it.
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South):
I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) had to say about apples. I must first declare an interest, in that my father-in-law was an apple grower, and some of my wife's family are still apple growers.
My hon. Friend said that all apples served in British schools should be English apples. Although that is clearly preferable, is my hon. Friend aware that a Cox can only keep for about eight months, and that there is therefore always a window in which one cannot supply the market with English apples? It is one of the great tragedies of the British apple industry that, from April to August, there can be no English apples on the market. Will he bear that in mind when considering the issue?
Mr. Burns:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that highly technical information. It is wonderful what one can learn from one's colleagues while standing at the Dispatch
Returning to the question of food and nutritional benefits to children and young people, it is appropriate to mention the welfare food scheme, which provides a nutritional benefit in kind, rather than in cash, for pregnant and breast-feeding mothers, and for children under five in low-income families.
As the hon. Member for Eccles is probably aware, the main provision of the scheme is that expectant and breast-feeding mothers and children under five in families in receipt of income support or an income-based jobseeker's allowance receive the following free of charge. Welfare milk beneficiaries receive a milk token per week, which may be exchanged for seven pints or eight half-litres of liquid milk. Infants under one year who are being bottle-fed may receive instead 900 g per week of a range of specified brands of infant formula. Vitamin supplements beneficiaries receive either vitamin drops or tablets containing vitamins A, D and C.
Mr. Tony Marlow (Northampton, North):
I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister--having only just come into the Chamber, it is rather impertinent of me to intervene in his speech. He has been talking about a range of benefits, but is there not some rumour that, dependent on the election results, there might be some risk to child benefit and related allowances? May I take it that the Conservative party is committed to the existing position, and that, along with the benefits about which he has been speaking, those benefits will be maintained? If, perchance and by severe misadventure, there should be a change of Government, is it not true that some of those benefits might be at risk?
Mr. Burns:
I am grateful for my hon. Friend's perspicacious views. As he rightly points out, the Conservative Government pledged--and have honoured the pledge throughout the life time of this Parliament--to maintain child benefit for all mothers with children under a certain age. I do not know how much the right hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) and his spin doctors have been arguing with the shadow Cabinet, but there have indeed been rumours and announcements that the shadow Chancellor was going to get tough and cut off child benefit for 16 to 19-year-olds who are still in school.
That would have an impact on the financial position of many families. If a universal benefit paid to all mothers with children of the qualifying age was cut off, those on low incomes would suffer, as well as those in middle or high income brackets. I know that any such proposal would be ring-fenced, so that anyone in receipt of a state benefit such as income support would not have their child benefit cut off, but there are many families who are above income support level but are not rich or well-off, and their family income would be cut. That tax-free sum would be
taken from them, and they would have less money to spend on good-quality food to help to give their children a proper balanced diet.
Miss Lestor:
The hon. Gentleman is being rather unfair, and is taking advantage of a situation. As I understand it, what has been discussed or said is that there is a problem whereby the children of the rich stay on at school, such as those at Eton college which is in my old constituency, and their parents, who can well afford to keep them at school, receive child benefit for them; whereas children of poorer families would often like to stay on at school if the benefits made if possible for them to do so, but they cannot.
The proposition that was discussed--there has been no policy announcement--was how resources could be switched away from those who do not need them towards those who need them most, and thus encourage them to stay on at school because it is in their interests to do so. That is what the argument was about; it was not about removing child benefit from poor families, and the Minister knows that.
Mr. Burns:
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that clarification. As a member of the Labour party, she may be better equipped to know exactly what was going on in the internecine wars of the shadow Cabinet. One of the problems currently facing the country is that, all too often, the Labour party does not tell us what its policies are, whether on child benefit or a windfall tax.
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