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Mr. Colvin: I very much doubt whether any families with children at my old school actually claim child benefit, but, were they to do so, a fair way of solving the problem would be to tax the benefit. I cannot understand why either party cannot have a policy stating that that sort of benefit should be taxed, because that would ensure that no one had an unfair advantage.
Mr. Burns: I shall not stray into taxation policy, because I may incur your displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which is the last thing I want to do.
I should like to say to my hon. Friend that there are assisted places at Eton for young boys--as far as I know, Eton college is not co-educational--so many families benefit under the assisted places scheme. As he knows, the Labour party plans to phase out that scheme and reinvest the money in health education. That will affect the psychological health of a child who previously thought that, because of his academic achievement, he would benefit from an assisted place, but then found that he would not be able to do so, because some future Labour Government had phased it out.
That raises another interesting point, which puzzles me. I do not know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you saw Mr. Jeremy Paxman in a razor-sharp interview of the
right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) on "Newsnight" last night. If not, I strongly suggest that you go to the House of Commons Library and get a video of it. It was an eye-opener. The right hon. Member for Sedgefield did not seem to be very persuasive about the money that would come from the assisted places scheme, which would be phased out and would therefore not provide a lot of money at once. I also do not think that he has considered the psychological effects of Labour's pernicious policy of depriving bright people of the opportunity to attend a school to which their parents could not otherwise afford to send them.
Mr. John Marshall:
My hon. Friend said that there were one or two things that he did not know about Labour party policy. He should get a copy of tonight's Evening Standard, which says that there are 50 things we do not know about Labour party policy. To return to the issue of food and nutrition--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Geoffrey Lofthouse):
Order. The hon. Gentleman is right to do so.
Mr. Marshall:
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was about to deal with the subject of food, nutrition and young children.
Does my hon. Friend agree that income is one of the factors determining the amount of nutrition that parents can afford to give their young children, and that that income is very much a function of whether they are in employment? Does he not therefore agree that there are very real risks to young children's nutritional standards from certain proposals that will be made in the United Kingdom?
Does my hon. Friend agree that a national minimum wage would affect young children, because their parents will become unemployed? Does he also agree that the social chapter would affect them? On food and nutrition, is he aware that the Brewers Society has suggested that the minimum wage would add 7p to a pint of beer?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions are almost becoming tedious repetition. I hope that it will not be necessary for me to pull up him or any other hon. Member on that point again.
Mr. Burns:
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will certainly do my best not to be tedious or repetitive.
I was explaining to the hon. Member for Eccles the important welfare food scheme. I should like to return to one point--not for the purpose of repetition but because, due to the enthusiasm of my hon. Friends, I suspect that the hon. Lady would like me to jog her memory. I was saying that welfare milk beneficiaries receive one 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 900 g per week of a range of specified brands of infant formula. Vitamin supplement beneficiaries receive either vitamin drops or droplets containing vitamins A, D and C.
Parents of children aged under one in families in receipt of family credit are entitled to purchase at a reduced price--currently £3.65--900 g of infant formula per week from clinics.
Mr. Michael Fabricant (Mid-Staffordshire):
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Burns:
If my hon. Friend will allow me, I should like to finish the section on welfare food schemes. I shall then be delighted to give way.
Liquid milk means whole or semi-skimmed liquid cows' milk, including long-life or UHT milk but not fully skimmed milk. I am sure that the hon. Member for Eccles will agree that that is a wide range, in a time when consumers want choice and shop around for the different types of milk that they think is particularly suitable for their family. The scheme has embraced that principle.
Mr. Fabricant:
Does my hon. Friend think that it is not consistent or logical to say that children's nutrition and their family's wealth necessarily go together, and that there is not necessarily such a correlation? Cannot people spend large sums on food that is not nutritious? Does he not agree that it is fundamentally important that schools across the United Kingdom should have programmes to educate people on family nutrition?
Mr. Burns:
My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid and important point, which is similar to the one about the person who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. Any individual can spend a considerable sum on food, but merely because the food is expensive does not mean that it is good food with nutritional value, or that it has as much nutritional value as other types of food that might be infinitely cheaper. As he said, the important factors are knowledge of the type of food one buys, why one should buy good food, and how one's family and oneself can benefit to the maximum extent.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) has rightly said that education is fundamentally important. As he will be aware, key stages 2 and 3 of the national curriculum provide for such information and knowledge to be provided to young children. As I told the hon. Member for Eccles--to avoid being out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will not elaborate in detail--we may well have a lost generation of parents, who are aged in their 20s and 30s, who never received such education. They do not understand the problems, and think that they can put any type of food in front of a child. That is why we may have to educate those parents through their children.
Mr. Fabricant:
My hon. Friend almost anticipated my supplementary question. What about that lost generation of parents who do not know how best to feed their children? What about that lost generation of parents who spend disposable income on Haagen-Dazs ice cream, which may taste nice but is not nutritious? What is his Department doing to educate parents who did not benefit from current educational programmes?
Mr. Burns:
As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Department of Health is extremely concerned about
Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford):
Notwithstanding Haagen-Dazs ice cream and its nutritional qualities, and the states in which some people eat it--I gather that some people like to eat it in various states of undress--does not the matter have some bearing on a slightly attached but distant subject: how people are educated about food in schools, such as in domestic science? We know that that is not a specific part of the national curriculum. Does my hon. Friend not think that perhaps we should be thinking of pushing people down that road in the future, when we return from the general election?
Mr. Burns:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; education has a key role to play, as I was saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire. As I said, part of the national curriculum, in key stages 2 and 3, deals with nutrition, food and dietary requirements. It is an important function of the national curriculum.
Mr. William Cash (Stafford):
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Was not there a little bleeping just now in the Chamber?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
There has been a little bleeping going on for quite a while. I did not hear the latest one.
Mr. Burns:
I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because there is a bleeping, and it puts me in a rather difficult
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