FEEDING OF CHILDREN.

HC Deb 03 February 1937 vol 319 cc1619-82

3.43 p.m.

Mr. Shinwell

I beg to move, That, in view of the disquieting reports regarding the physical condition of children, this House is of opinion that, out of moneys provided by Parliament, provision should be made for supplying, in addition to milk, at least one meal per day to every child attending an elementary or secondary school. The President of the Board of Education has informed the House that the Government's proposals on the subject of physical fitness will be announced shortly. It is, therefore, appropriate that we should deliberate this aspect of the question now. The question of under feeding and improper feeding is closely related to the question of health. I am fortified in that opinion by the views of many eminent experts whose names appear in the annual report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1935. Sir Robert McCarrison says that nutrition is the very basis of health, and Sir Gowland Hopkins expresses the opinion that it is to-day becoming well recognised that right nutrition, especially right nutrition early in life, will profoundly affect the well-being and social value of the individual. These statements alone more than justify the raising of this Debate. This is an eminently modest and practical proposal, which does not go as far as the Labour party would desire. We shall never be content until all children, at school or otherwise, irrespective of parental income, are every day in the year provided not with one meal but with all the meals that are required for their sustenance.

Mr. Levy

At the cost of the State?

Mr. Shinwell

That is the goal at which we aim. We recognise that there are some practical difficulties in the way. We must raise wage standards to a much higher level and unemployment must disappear. We must reorganise production and distribution of foodstuffs before that objective is attained. But meantime we want an assurance from this House that at least one substantial meal a day is provided for children attending school. That is our minimum demand. Although some improvement in health is manifested among school children, the position is far from satisfactory. In the report to which I have already referred the Chief Medical Officer says: The reports of school medical officers throughout the country generally do not suggest that there has been any deterioration in the nutrition of school children. Where statistics relating to heights and weights are given there is almost invariably an increase shown compared with the statistics of previous years. But he goes on to say: The question may, however, be not so much as to deterioration but whether the degree of progress is as satisfactory as it might be. That good nourishment does exist in certain areas and in certain sections of the population is hardly to be contested. There are areas in which severe depression, continued for many years, has left its mark. That is a very important declaration, which fortifies the case for this Motion. There is, of course, considerable variation in the condition of school children in different parts of the country. In the Special Areas the deterioration is most marked. In Hebburn, for example, according to this report, a substantial increase in the measure of deterioration has recently been recorded. Dr. Burn, the medical officer who went to that district not long ago, says: I have tried to examine the children in an unbiased way, and with not too exacting a standard in mind. Perhaps previous experience of areas where unemployment is less severe colours my impression, for I must admit that the state of nutrition of Hebburn children is decidedly inferior to that of the children of more fortunate areas. Then, be it noted, he goes on to say: Our children bear on their bodies the marks of the economic hardships of recent years. That is a very grave utterance and one which the President of the Board of Education must consider.

Independent investigations have recently been undertaken throughout the country by teachers who are in actual contact with the children and are, therefore, entitled to express an opinion. In Durham County, several of those teachers have declared that there seemed to be a remarkable difference between children coming from homes where there was prolonged unemployment and those where wages were regular, that many of the children were thin and starved-looking and that in physique, mental alertness and ability they were much below the standard of five years ago, and were decidedly backward in lessons and easily tired. One headmaster stated that, in his own school of over 40o children, at least one-third showed the need for more food. He went on to say: The provision of milk has prevented the situation from becoming worse, but many show signs of distress in spite of the milk ration. I would advise any hon. Gentleman below the Gangway who proposes to speak for the Liberal party upon their Amendment, to take note of that statement.

I referred to the London area advisedly, because it is too often thought that under-nourishment is confined to the Special Areas. That is far from being true. In the London area, 189,203 school children were medically examined during 1935. The result showed that only 32,934 were in excellent health. The ill-health of the remaining five-sixths was regarded as due mainly to under-nourishment. Opinions were expressed in previous reports of the Board of Education in relation to the survey of 3,000 unselected children between the ages of two and six. Excluding dental and eye defects, 27 per cent. of them suffered impairment of health. I could go on quoting from these documents the opinions of experts, educationists and those who have devoted themselves to the study of the subject of nutrition, in order to prove that, in spite of undoubted improvement, the position is far from reassuring. Admittedly, more and better food can effect a substantial change in the health and physique of school children. On this subject I have one quotation from Sir John Orr who, in his book "Food, Health and Income," states that the result of tests on children showed that improvement of the diet in the lower groups was accompanied by improvement in health and increased rate of growth, which approximated to children in the higher income groups. He states: In 1927 a series of tests was carried out in Scotland, in which about 1,500 children in the elementary schools in the seven largest towns were given additional milk at school for a period of seven months. Periodic measurement of the children showed that the rate of growth in those getting additional milk was about 20 per cent. greater than in those not getting additional milk. This was accompanied by a noticeable improvement in health and vigour. The Educational Institute of Scotland conducted a very minute investigation of an educational character into the qualifications of various school children, some coming from poor homes and others coming from homes where incomes were much higher. Therefore, I submit the general proposition that improvement undoubtedly does manifest itself when more and better food is regularly supplied.

I turn from those considerations to the present situation. The Labour party declares that the existing provisions are hopelessly inadequate. The report of the Chief Medical Officer of Health dealing with this aspect of the question refers to a new circular. There was one circular with which we are all familiar and about which there was considerable controversy. It has been withdrawn, or, at all events, left in abeyance. The new circular issued by the board affirms the fact that where parents' incomes fall within the income scale of the board that does not justify the provision of free meals. What does it mean? Two conditions are laid down before meals can be provided. One is the income condition. The incomes of parents must not go beyond a certain scale. The other condition is that, irrespective of the income, however low and inadequate it may be, it must be firmly established, as a result of medical inspection, that a child is unable, because of its physical condition, to absorb education. I say at once that both those conditions are highly objectionable. If it is found necessary to impose conditions, I would rather have the income condition than the other.

If the Board of Education desire to fix a scale which should be a test of the condition established before meals are provided, let them do so, but if, alongside an income test, they desire to establish that the child's physical condition is such as to prevent that child receiving the advantage of education, it is a condition in which, in the circumstances, the parential income is out of the question. I should like the President of the Board of Education to take that point into consideration. In the opinion of the Labour party, all the fiddling restrictions on the provision of meals should be abandoned. If we are to establish physical fitness, and if it be agreed that sound feeding is the basis of physical fitness, the provision of meals, whether of milk or of meals of a more substantial character, should form part of the educational system of this country.

I turn from those considerations to the objections that are frequently raised to the proposals contained in the Motion. The first objection is on the ground of the cost. We are asked, to begin with, whether the State is to make itself responsible for the financial costs that are likely to be entailed. My first answer is this: No matter what the cost is, no price is too high to pay for the assurance that our school children are being properly nourished. My second answer is that the particulars of costs presented by the Minister himself are grossly exaggerated. If we take, for example, the question of milk costs, the Minister stated, in reply to a question the other day, that if a pint of milk were provided for all school children in State-aided schools it would cost, at present milk values, £10,000,000 per annum, that is to say if milk were provided on school days. But the Minister's estimate is based on the retail price of milk, or a figure approximating to the retail price, Is. 4½d. a gallon. But we know that millions of gallons of milk are sold in this country for manufacturing purposes at round about 5d. a gallon. Clearly, if the farmers, those engaged in the milk-producing industry, had an assured market of the kind that is indicated in this Motion, they could afford to sell the milk at a much lower price than at present.

I will not pin the Minister down to 5d. a gallon. Let us compromise; let us say rod, a gallon. I believe that to be a satisfactory price for the farmers, having regard to the considerations involved and the amount of milk that could be disposed of. That would mean that instead of the cost being £10,000,000 it could be reduced by almost half. Over and above that it may well be that some children will not avail themselves of the milk facilities. If they refuse, that is a matter either for themselves or their parents. Some will prefer to pay for the milk provided and if parents desire to pay for it let them do so. There ought to be no compulsion exercised in that regard, so far as the parents are concerned. But where the children are ready to avail themselves of the milk facilities provided by the Board of Education through the local authorities, they ought to receive the ration of milk without any financial questions being asked. If the Minister regards the cost on that basis as too high, his conception of the needs of school children is quite different from that of the Labour party.

I turn to the costs likely to be involved in the provision of one meal a day. I think it has already been established that in spite of the milk ration the children require more and better food. It has also been firmly established that thousands of children go short of food. Moreover—and this from our standpoint is the most important consideration of all—thousands of parents, where no wages exist and where there has been prolonged unemployment, are unable to pay for the meals that their children require. There can be no dispute about the facts and we have no desire to exaggerate the position; there is common agreement on these matters. In view of those circumstances we suggest that the Minister ought to enforce the regulations of the Board or to relax the regulations wherever necessary, and where local authorities, because of heavy rating burdens—many of them are too heavily burdened at the moment, as for example in Durham, in South Wales and elsewhere—are unable to provide the funds required, the State must come to their assistance.

What is likely to be the cost involved? According to the Minister the cost of meals, assuming the gross cost to be 5d. per meal, would be about £24,000,000 per annum. I cannot understand how the Minister arrives at that estimate. For example in Bradford, where they have been providing free meals to school children for many years—Bradford is one of the pioneers in this connection—the total cost of supplying the foodstuffs necessary, and of the overhead charges, the cost of canteens, of transport and the like, is 3d. per meal. If Bradford can undertake the provision of free meals on that basis I find great difficulty in appreciating the estimate furnished by the Minister. In many other parts of the country we find that the cost is much lower than the Minister suggested in his reply to the question put to him the other day. For example in Edinburgh the cost of the food is less than 2d. per meal. It is very doubtful whether 3d. is required in order to make up the overhead charges. In London we learn that the cost of the meal alone is less than 2d.

There, again, it would be interesting to have from the Minister some closer approximation to the actual costs than he has already provided. But it may well be that, just as in the case of milk so in the case of the more substantial meal, many parents would prefer to pay for the meal provided or would prefer that their children should return to their homes at mid-day. But where the children require the food they ought to have that food without any kind of restriction. On that assumption, that some will pay and some will refuse to have the meal, I suggest that the Minister's estimate of £24,000,000 is a gross exaggeration. But even if it cost £24,000,000 it would not be too much, having regard to the benefits that could be derived.

Now I come to another consideration. The reduction in disease arising from the improvement in health conditions that would be consequent from the provision of regular meals, the right kind of nourishment, for school children, would far outweigh the actual costs involved. The hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) has stated in this House that the cost of disease to the nation annually is £300,000,000. Sir John Bray has placed the cost at more than £200,000,000. But we need not bandy words and figures on that head. There will be common agreement on this—that if meals are provided regularly there is bound to be some reduction in the amount of disease amongst school children, and to that extent the cost would not be anything like as high as the Minister anticipates.

Let me pass to a further consideration. It is said that the provision of free food would demoralise the parents. I do not suppose it is suggested that it would demoralise the children. The children could hardly appreciate the demoralisation. I speak for myself personally. I can recall when I was a school child in a poverty-stricken home, when the provision of a meal would not have caused me the slightest perturbation of mind, although it might have done my stomach a great deal of good. I have no doubt that when I did receive a meal that was the effect. The hon. Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. G. Williams) in this House the other day, when a question was put to the Minister on the subject of free meals for school children, seemed to indicate that he regarded this proposal as leading to universal pauperisation. That does not come well from hon. Members who are always asking for subsidies. If the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Education prefers to regard this as a subsidy, let him do so. It is the right kind of subsidy, the most economic form of subsidy which can be granted by this House.

In any event, speaking for the Labour party, I make this declaration: We are ready to endure all the vices of demoralisation that may result from the provision of free meals for school children. Moreover, the same argument has been used at all times in this House when there has been a question of housing subsidies, or a question of old age pensions. Indeed, when the question of unemployment allowances was originally raised we heard a great deal about demoralisation, the sapping of independence, the loss of our national characteristics, and the like—all very fine-sounding phrases, but in view of the existing situation they have nothing whatever to do with the case. If we have an assurance that all will eat when they require to eat, that will far outweigh any trifling consideration of that kind.

Therefore, I submit finally these considerations to the House; This is a proposal which should enlist the support of every Member. I say that advisedly. I do not want to raise any emotional issue, but it is appropriate in the circumstances, because hon. Members, I think without any exception, are well nourished; they receive a sufficiency of food; the question of food rarely troubles them; they know where the next meal is coming from. We want to have the same assurance for our children attending school. I cannot understand why any hon. Members should oppose the Motion. I notice that on the Order Paper there are two Amendments, one by the Liberal party to which I have referred and about which I will just say this further word: The Liberal party is always seeking a half-way house. It has never been able to provide a decent habitation. So far as the Tory Amendment is concerned, what surprises me about it is that it should be sponsored by a woman Member. It expresses the hope that, where necessary, the powers already possessed by local education authorities for the purpose will he more fully utilised. What is meant by "where necessary"? I venture a response: it is necessary everywhere so far as school children are concerned.

Our proposal is justified by the facts. I could have quoted from many eminent experts, but I shall not yield to that temptation. It is supported by a mass of evidence from social reformers and medical men who have devoted themselves to a study of the question. It is admitted that there is undoubtedly a considerable measure of under-feeding among school children. That is not denied. Again I repeat that we have no desire to exaggerate the situation. There is an abundance of under-feeding, and that has got to be corrected. Moreover, it will be admitted that children's health is being undermined by lack of proper and sufficient food, and that is a proposition which I ask the House to accept.

Furthermore, the largest proportion of children who show signs of under-feeding come from homes where wages are low and there is prolonged unemployment. That cannot be denied. Where children are supplied with milk or meals, a marked improvement has shown itself. The Board of Education have taken credit for the improvement. Let them take more credit if they will; let them provide the meals and let them take all the credit. There exists a considerable disparity between children from high and low income groups in respect of height, weight and general health. That is not disputed. From these facts I derive the conclusion that the whole nation will gain in health, in vigour, in physique, and above all in food production, if this Motion is accepted. It will serve as an important contribution to social wellbeing, to the safeguarding of child life, and to the future of the nation. We are asking in this Motion that the House of Commons shall take care of the children. If it does, we believe that the adult population of this country can take care of themselves.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. James Brown

I beg to second the Motion.

I am very glad to be associated with this Motion, asking that at least one meal per day should be provided for our school children. The Mover of the Motion said that he did not want to talk sentiment, but I would that I were able to awake sentiment throughout the whole House, and raise the emotions of all right hon. and hon. Members in regard to the stern necessity of feeding our school children. I think it is to our credit for once, at any rate, whatever may be thought about other proposals of ours, that the Labour party should be perturbed about our school children. I am sure the Minister for War is perturbed, not about the children, but about the product of our schools in past days, and that if he were here he would agree with us when we say that, if we are to have a strong and efficient able-bodied populace to protect and guard these islands, we must begin that protection when our children are at school. We think nothing in these days of enforcing education, even upon reluctant folk; we see to it that the child is educated; and, surely, the corollary to education is proper food. As my hon. Friend has already indicated, if the child is not properly fed, it is almost impossible for the child to absorb the education that is offered to it in our schools. We do not allow parents to get off if it is discovered that they are not taking care of their own children. In many cases they are haled before courts of justice and punished for neglect of the children in their homes. Why, then, should the Government be exempt from punishment if they do not protect the children of the nation? They are not really exempt, because the bill comes forward sooner or later. Should we disobey the laws of God and of man, we find that the bill must be met when we require able-bodied men to do any work that is necessary for the protection of our land.

Mention has been made of the Amendment of the hon. Lady the Member for East Islington (Miss Cazalet). I cannot understand why that Amendment has been put down at all. It welcomes all the measures already taken by the Government to promote the physical welfare of children. So do we. We welcome what has been already done, but we want it extended; we want more care to be taken. Further, to talk about local education authorities utilising all the powers that they have is not to talk wisely at all. It is well known that there is a want of uniformity among all local authorities, whether education or otherwise; that is one of the difficulties with which we have to contend in the local areas. Every authority has the power to provide food and everything else that is required, not only in connection with adult life, but especially in connection with child life. But we can call upon local authorities until we are hoarse. Will they come when they are called? In many cases they will not—not in all, I am bound to say. There are many who do look upon themselves as the guardians of the children, and, wherever that is the case, and they take advantage of the powers they already possess, we have something really useful being done in those areas.

The Motion speaks of State assistance, and of course we require State assistance; that seems to be required by everybody in the country to-day. The Government are never afraid or ashamed to come before this House and ask for subsidies for many things that would never enter the heads of many hon. Members, especially if they were, like myself, confirmed Free Traders. For everything that arises, money must be found, and is found. Last night the House passed two Resolutions, introduced by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, relating to oxalic acid and to knives. The hon. Gentleman was advocating duties on knives and on oxalic acid, and there was really very little opposition. He went to considerable trouble to prove that the protection of the knives in question was needed, because otherwise people in Sheffield might lose their livelihood, and he asked the House to believe that this was really not an imposition at all, but merely taking something out of one pocket and putting it into another. If that statement is correct, I rather agree with the hon. Gentleman that it did not very much matter into which of the pockets it was put.

In this case something must come out of the pocket of the Government. It will, however, go into another pocket where it will fructify and repay itself a thousandfold. Why any hon. Member should grudge even the higher figures that have been named by the President of the Board of Education, why anyone should stumble at either the £12,000,000 or the £24,000,000, I cannot for the life of me understand. Is it not for the good of the country that we should help our children? Sometimes, when we express our thoughts on the misery that we see around us, we are told that we are talking "sob-stuff"; but there 'is no "sob-stuff" here; there is plain common sense in the proposal that we are putting before the House. Could any investment give a better return than feeding our children, making them fit for the battle of life, and bringing them to such a state of health as befits members of this great Empire of ours? I do not think it would be difficult to prove that we should be doing a good day's work if the Amendments were withdrawn and if the House were informed that the objections which exist in the minds of many Members of this Assembly should be over-ridden by the stern necessities of the case.

As my hon. Friend has already pointed out, in localities where there is great poverty there are children who are never able to perform the ordinary educational tasks as they should do, because they lack everything that is necessary for the making of a healthy child—and a child ought always to be healthy. We ought to take care of our children. They are one of the greatest trusts that God has given to any nation, and, if we can get the nation to believe in its children, and to be always concerned about their wellbeing, as their parents are concerned about their well-being, a new era will begin, at any rate among the juvenile population of this country. I believe it would be a great thing for the country physically if this Motion were carried, and I ask hon. Members to vote for it. I believe in the moral and spiritual welfare of our people. You can never dissociate the two. If we are to be a moral people, if we really are to be a spiritual people leading the nations, as we have done in the past, we must see to it that we behave as Christian men and women ought to behave towards these little ones who have been given into our care. The Master whose name we invoke every day at the meeting of this Assembly loved little children. Why do we not love little children to the extent of being able, without any grudge of any kind, to ask for a very large subsidy indeed, much larger than what were called the exaggerated figures that my hon. Friend mentioned? We are so used to subsidies, we are so inured to giving grants, that I cannot see for the life of me why it stops short of assisting school children to a better and much happier life.

My hon. Friend talked about being in a poverty-stricken home. Looking back on it, I suppose my home was not a very wealthy one but, being a child, naturally I did not think a great deal about it then because all around me were alike. There was no respect of persons. There is never any respect of persons when poverty comes into any home, and there should be no respect paid to any class of the community when we are asking for a very modest subsidy. We are asking that at least one meal per day, as well as the milk, should be granted to our children, and I am certain that many of your hearts would rejoice afterwards if you could only bring yourselves to the belief that the Government are not always in the right. We want you to believe that occasionally they can be in the wrong. This is one of the times when they are really in the wrong, and we ask you to try to cheer yourselves up with that warm feeling that comes over everyone after doing a good deed. Let everyone here do his good deed to-day. It consists in assisting those who require assistance. Our national poet said: Affliction's sons are brothers in distress, A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! I want the House to be in unison with us. I want it to accept at least some of our arguments, and to come into line with us here. We do not often ask for a subsidy, but we do with all our heart and soul commend this Motion to the House.

4.34 p.m.

Miss Cazalet

I beg to move, in line r, to leave out from "That," to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof: this House welcomes the measures taken by the Government to promote the physical welfare of children, recognises the beneficial results already achieved, as shown by the annual reports of the chief medical officer of the Board of Education, and hopes that, where necessary, the powers already possessed by local education authorities for the purpose will be more fully utilised. I think we can all agree that any subject which has to do with the physical welfare of the coming generation is bound to arouse interest on all sides of the House, and, although we on these benches cannot agree with the Motion that has been put forward so forcefully and may I say with so much sincerity, we can, at any rate, thank the hon. Members most sincerely for making it possible for us to discuss such a very important and interesting subject. There is no doubt that there is immense interest throughout the whole country, quite irrespective of party politics, on the subject of nutrition in its widest sense. I have listened with the utmost attention to the speeches of the Mover and Seconder, and yet I cannot quite understand why they should think that giving one compulsory Government meal a day to all children would deal with certain disquieting reports from certain districts which have been referred to. I think it would be a great waste of public money to insist that all children should be fed, quite irrespective of whether they require it or not, whether their parents wish them to have it or not, and whether they are being properly fed in their own homes. I do not believe there is any considerable body of opinion in the country which would agree that this was either right, or wise, or just and, anyway, before spending such a large sum—I know the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) does not agree with the figure that the President gave of £24,000,000, but I think he would agree that it would be a large sum—any Government would want to be quite sure that there is a real demand for it. I have yet to hear that any local authority has asked for it, and I do not know that any body of parents really desire this expenditure. In fact, I think many fathers and mothers would object to it, and would feel that it was a real interference with the functions of the home.

I have learned to-day for the first time that this is part of the policy of the Labour party, otherwise I rather thought that perhaps it was an undisclosed plank in the policy of the United Front. But it really is quite impossible to understand why the Government should be asked to feed all children irrespective of whether they need it or not. It really does not seem common sense. One might just as well say that, in order to eliminate slums and overcrowding in certain parts of the country, the Government should be asked to give a subsidy to everybody who wants to put up a house. I do not believe, if the party opposite were in power, the hon. Gentleman would ask them to spend this huge sum and, if he did, I rather doubt whether they would listen to him. The Mover and Seconder concentrated on certain disquieting reports. It is only fair to say that any unbiased person must be deeply impressed with the very many reassuring reports that have been summarised by the medical officer in the report referred to by the hon. Member for Seaham. He said that the reports of school medical officers throughout the country do not suggest that there has been any deterioration in the nutrition of children, and report after report affords testimony to the improvement. Walsall, Eccles, Wakefield, Cumberland, Cannock and a host of others all show that there has been real improvement and that there has been hardly any malnutrition of any sort. I am sure all of us who have visited schools in different parts of the country will agree that those reports are quite correct.

To my mind this is only natural, when one realises the enormous amount that has been done by the National Government and by local authorities. I think the facts and figures are most impressive and the position not, as the hon. Gentleman declared, hopelessly inadequate. Besides food there are many factors that make for the well-being of the children. The better economic position of the country and the decrease in unemployment play no small part in their general health and physical well-being; also the wonderful housing programme of the Government and the large slum clearances that are going on all over the country, and we know that, shortly, the Government are going to deal specially with the physical education of our young people. With regard actually to the matter of feeding, an enormous amount has already been done in this connection alone. The great Milk Scheme has been described by a medical officer as the largest experiment in supplementary school feeding that the world has ever seen. After all, very nearly 3,000,000 children are benefiting under it and I believe nearly 400,000 are receiving free milk daily. I am convinced that with the right sort of encouragement and propaganda a very great deal more might be done in this direction. With regard to actual meals, it does not seem to me that it is the function of any education authority just to feed everyone, but it is their function to see that all children who attend school are in a fit and proper condition to take advantage of the education. That is surely the main basis of our whole medical and health services in connection with the schools to-day, and it has been emphasised and clarified in the circular from which the hon. Gentleman himself quoted. Paragraph 2 of Circular 1443 says: The Board are concerned to secure that all children who are unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them should receive such supplementary nourishment as may be appropriate in each case, the meals being provided free where the parent is unable to pay. For this purpose in their view provision may be properly made for any child who shows any symptoms, whether educational or physical, however slight. I am certain that the large majority of education authorities up and down the country are putting this into operation. I do not agree that the facts and figures are not satisfactory in London. The Medical Officer in his last report said quite distinctly: unremitting attention has been given to the whole question of the children's nutrition. and the results are very remarkable. Out of a thorough examination of almost 190,000 children no fewer than 94 per cent. were found to be quite satisfactory and only 5.7 per cent. were slightly abnormal; and, of that number, actually only 152 children were classified as cases of bad nutrition. I am certain that every one of those cases is having personal and individual attention. The London County Council have recently set up five nutrition centres in different parts of London. These are for the express purpose of studying and helping those special cases which do not seem to respond to the ordinary methods. From what I have seen myself in London, there really is not a single child whose education need suffer because of under-nourishment or malnutrition, and I believe that that is the case in very many parts of the country as well as in London. It is a very interesting fact also that, if you compare the amount that is being spent to-day upon meals with what was spent in 193o-31, when there was a real depression in the country and employment was very bad, you will find to-day, when things are generally so much more prosperous, that very nearly double is being spent on meals alone. That is surely a very satisfactory state of affairs and shows what a very much higher level of nutrition we expect to-day, and shows also that the Government are giving very real attention to this all-important problem.

I will say a few words about the reports, which are not so satisfactory, and to which hon. Members opposite have referred in their Motion as disquieting. It is true that if you study some of the tables of the Chief Medical Officer's report that under the new classification they show that things are not so satisfactory in certain areas, and that there is a higher percentage of children in categories "C" and "D" than any of us likes to see. Although food is not the only factor, we on this side of the House are as anxious as hon. Members opposite to improve matters in these areas. We all know that the Government are very shortly to introduce legislation to help the Special Areas in this country, and I would ask the Government to do everything they can to ease the situation in those districts where education authorities, owing to poverty, are not able to take full advantage of the powers they already possess. In certain districts, owing to the low income scales, children are not always receiving free meals and milk to the extent that we should like. I am sure that the Government would obtain support from all sides of the House if, when they introduce their new legislation, they would make special provisions to deal with this aspect of the problem.

Like the hon. Member who moved the Motion, I have visited some of the Special Areas and I realise what some of the difficulties are. I pay tribute to the wonderful way in which the teachers, under very difficult conditions very often, have helped to organise the whole feeding of the children both in connection with the milk schemes and the actual meals. Every one of us would wish to do all we can to make their work easier and more effective. But, it is true to say that, as a whole, and generally up and down the country, facts and figures show that the situation in regard to nutrition is steadily improving. There are certain areas in which the authorities are not using all the powers they have, and these areas need gingering up, and I hope very much that the Government will do the necessary gingering. On the other hand, there are areas to which I have referred that do not need gingering at all, but require all the help and encouragement they can get, and I hope and believe that the Government will give them that help and encouragement.

There can be no standing still in any human affairs and certainly none where the well-being of the children is concerned. But it is because I do not believe that by accepting the Motion, which has been moved by the hon. Member for Seaham we really shall be advancing the cause that we all have so much at heart, that I ask the House to reject the Motion, and to accept the Amendment which I have moved.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. Keeling

I beg to second the Amendment which has been moved by my hon. Friend, and I echo what she said when she referred to the interest taken by hon. Members on this side of the House in this question. If you apply any test you like—whether the legislation which has been promoted or the results achieved by this Government or by Conservative Governments in the past—you will find that enormous progress has been made in improving the health of the people. It is true that this afternoon there are not a very large number of the supporters of the Government present, but I attribute that to the extravagant and exaggerated terms in which the Motion moved by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) is worded.

A good case is not served by exaggeration, nor is progress achieved by extravagant demands. The Motion completely ignores the fact that the vast majority of the children of this country are not undernourished, as is proved by the Medical Reports.

My hon. Friend read a number of reports, and I am not going to dwell any more on that aspect, but I will quote one statement in the Report on the Health of the Schoolchild for 1935, to which, I think, insufficient publicity has been given. It is a statement made by the Chief Medical Officer to the Post Office, who finds from his records that the boys of the present day weigh on an average 16 lbs. more and are 1½ inches taller than those in a corresponding social position 25 years ago, and that girls to-day weigh on an average 10 lbs. more and are one inch taller than the girls of 25 years ago. In spite of all this evidence of progress, the Motion demands that whatever the financial position of the parent, he shall be relieved of the duty of feeding his child. I should have liked to congratulate the Mover of the Motion upon his moderation in only asking for a free dinner, were it not that he appears to have repented of his moderation when he came to the House. He said just now that he did not really want only one free meal a day to be provided but three meals a day. Why is that demand not included in the Motion?

As my hon. Friend said, there is no demand in this country for universal free meals for children. If you took a plebiscite of the country on this Motion, the people would indignantly reject it. They would resent the attempt made by this Motion to pauperise them. It is extraordinarily creditable that the working-class mothers of this country manage to feed their children as well as they do on wages which we should all like to see increased. "The virtue of parents is a great dowry." That was said 2,000 years ago, and I do not think that the nature of parents has changed since then. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion said that he desired the moral and spiritual welfare of the people, and I would ask him whether he thinks that it would increase the spiritual and moral welfare of the people to be relieved of the duty of feeding their own children.

Mr. J. Brown

I do believe that such is the case, and I reiterate what I have said.

Mr. Keeling

I assert on the other hand, that it is a right and proper thing, a deep-rooted human instinct, even a law of nature, that parents should themselves feed their children. Are we to sweep away this fundamental principle because a small proportion of the children of this country are underfed? The right course is to lubricate and tighten up the existing machinery, which provides that any child whose health or education is suffering should be given a free meal if the low income of the parent justifies it. The lion. Member for Seaham said that a child could only get a free meal when he showed physical signs of being undernourished. How can he justify that statement in view of the Board of Education circular, a paragraph of which was read by my hon. Friend? That paragraph definitely says that provision may properly be made for any child who shows any symptoms of needing it—whether physical or educational—however slight. The circular goes on to say, in a later paragraph: The Authorities should themselves take steps to ascertain the children who are in need of feeding by inviting reports from members of the School Medical Service, or the Public Health Service, from teachers, school nurses, school attendance officers, and others in regular contact with the children from day to day.

Mr. Georģe Griffiths

How long will it take to get them? I know of some children who had to wait 14 weeks; the children could not get meals because the medical officer had not sent in a report.

Mr. Keeling

The hon. Member should address that inquiry to the local education authority. Hon. Members were told last week that the cost of putting into force this Motion would be £24,000,000 for the 200 school days or £43,000,000 for the 365 days of the year. There has been some dispute to-day as to whether these figures are correct, but whatever the sum, is it conceivable that any Chancellor of the Exchequer, even a Chancellor of the Exchequer belonging to the opposite party, would put the scheme into operation? Even if that figure were reduced considerably, it would also have to be increased again to cover the cost of extra premises. The whole sum to be provided for the scheme would come from the taxpayer, whereas it would be administered and spent entirely by the local authorities. Is there any precedent for so divorcing the raising of money from the control of its spending? There is one precedent. [An HON. MEMBER: "The milk scheme!"] The only precedent that I know of is the transfer of the whole cost of transitional benefit to the Exchequer, and as that transfer contributed to the fall of the last Labour Government it is not exactly a happy precedent.

Mr. Shinwell

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on Monday we agreed to a Financial Resolution, despite the opposition from this side of the House, which provides for a subsidy of £2,000,000 for the tramp-shipping industry, and that the subsidy is not to be controlled, supervised or administered by the Government, but is to be left entirely in the hands of the recipients?

Mr. Keeling

I am perfectly well aware of that, but that was not my point. I know of no precedent, except the unfortunate one I have quoted, of money being paid by the taxpayer and entirely administered by the local authority.

Mr. Dingle Foot

Is it not the fact that the system of local public assistance committees administering funds provided by the State began only in 1931?

Mr. Keeling

That is exactly what meant.

Mr. Foot

It was after the advent of the National Government.

Mr. Keeling

It had begun in the last Labour Government.

Mr. Ede

Has the hon. Member never heard of the zoo per cent. highway grants to crofting counties in Scotland?

Mr. Keeling

I must admit that I am only speaking about England.

Mr. Ede

The hon. Member is answering a Scotsman.

Mr. Keeling

The right hon. baronet the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) has an Amendment on the Paper which seeks to cast upon the taxpayer the burden of providing not one free meal, but one free pint of milk for every child attending school. Precisely the arguments which I have already used apply to that Amendment, except that the cost would be less.

Sir Francis Acland

Is the hon. Member not aware that there is considerable contribution made in that regard by the Government without any contribution being made by the local authority to the milk in schools scheme now?

Mr. Keeling

I am perfectly aware of that, and will come to it in a moment. The Board of Education have laid down the principle that free milk instead of or in addition to free meals may be provided when the needs of the child and the means of the parent justify it, and there seems no reason to think that any revolutionary change is required in the existing procedure. It is true that more than half the school children of this country are not availing themselves of this scheme for cheap or free milk, but the main causes of that appear to be not poverty but the indifference of the parent or the distaste of the child. I am told that one child who refused milk remarked that milk that was offered at half price must be half water. This indifference or distaste can obviously be overcome only by education, and except in a few small areas where the milk scheme is not in existence there seems to be no reason to think that children are being debarred from the scheme on the ground of cost.

If the Amendment referred to had been directed to increasing the quantity of milk provided under the milk-inschools scheme from one-third of a pint to some higher quantity, there would be a great deal to be said for it. At present the one-third of a pint which a child can get for one halfpenny, or free if it is under-nourished, is much less than scientists have said to be necessary and much less than the Ministry of Health's own Advisory Committee have recommended. I should Tike my hon. Friend who replies for the Government to give an assurance that the question of increasing the quantity of milk provided under the milk-in-schools scheme will be very earnestly considered when the report of the Milk Reorganisation Commission is taken into consideration. So long as milk is poured into factories at the price of 5d. a gallon, or less, the people of this country will not be satisfied that it can only be poured down the throats of children at a much higher price.

I return to the Labour Motion. It is true, and I have no doubt hon. Members opposite will draw attention to the fact, that there has been a reduction in the number of free meals this year as compared with last year. The obvious explanation of that is that employment has increased and wages have increased. The decline is not due to any weariness in well-doing on the part of the local authorities. A much fairer test of the progress made is to see how many local authorities have put the scheme in force. The number is increasing steadily and is now, I think, 244 out of 316. I do not suggest that there is not room for improvement. Nothing is perfect. Even in the Garden of Eden some of the food provided was found to be poisonous.

I admit some of the facts that were alleged by the hon. Member who moved the Motion, and I would make certain concrete suggestions to the Government. In the first place I would suggest that more frequent surveys of the nutrition of the children should be made. There have been a good many suggestions by medical officers that that is necessary. It appears that some alteration of the routine medical inspections in schools is also required. In the second place the income scale which qualifies parents to get free meals for their children is in some cases too high. There does not seem to be any evidence that this scale varies according to the political views of the local council. In some cases it does seem to require lowering. Thirdly, there are very poor areas where no solid meals, but only milk meals, are being given. In the constituency of the hon. Member who moved the Motion there are no free solid meals, but only free milk. If the poverty of the council prevents free solid meals being given, I would ask the Government to take that fact into consideration when preparing their plans for helping the Special Areas, and to let us know this afternoon what their views are on that point. My fourth suggestion is that something should be done, if possible, to improve the quality of meals where they are badly reported on. A statement like this from the report which I have already quoted is a little disquieting: Whilst many authorities, great and small, make good arrangements and provide excellent meals of sufficient variety, in many cases there are serious faults, which include—in the diet supplied, inadequacy, monotony or sloppiness; in the administration, inadequate supervision and multiple services, and lastly, defects in the premises and equipment, one of the commonest faults being unsuitable halls. One of the inspectors reported: The meal served (called Irish stew) consisted of a thick soup. I tasted it and came to the conclusion that it was a very poor meal, mainly carbohydrate and of very little nutritional value. If meals can be made in all cases nutritious and can be well cooked, not only are they better for the child, but they set a standard which the child in after life will, if it be a male, demand, and if it be a female will, I hope, provide.

Lastly, there are a certain number of local authorities which provide canteens where meals are served on payment. In some cases free meals for those who are under-nourished are provided in the same canteen. I think there is scope for an extension of this system. Again, I should like to quote from the report: School canteens afford, upon payment, two great advantages to children living at a distance from school, namely, an adequate and well-cooked midday meal, and a relief from the fatigue of a double journey, with the saving of time and energy. … Moreover, a combination of canteen and free-meal-centre might lead to improvement of the service and diet of the latter and thus afford the valuable educational training in diet, hygiene and decorum which can be derived from a well-served and properly eaten meal. I hope that local education authorities who do not at present provide canteens may be induced to do so.

I would ask the Government to give serious consideration to all these points, and in the belief that they will do so I ask hon. Members to support the Amend- ment and to reject the extravagant and unnecessary Motion which has been proposed from the Opposition benches.

5.11 p.m

Sir F. Acland

Every hon. Member who heard the two speeches with which the Motion was proposed and seconded must have been very much impressed with them. I particularly enjoyed them and, if I may say so without depreciation of the first speech, I particularly enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown) who seldom addresses the House but who always delights us when he intervenes. I also thoroughly appreciated the two speeches that we have heard from the other side of the House. It is a good thing to have both sides of the question put, but I do not quite appreciate the Amendment. It is a very large wet blanket if it is intended to smother the Motion, and certainly if the House carries the Amendment, as I suppose it will do, its effect will be absolutely nil. It seems to me as if the Amendment has been inspired by the Patronage Secretary, or, if not, that the hon. Lady has very ably appreciated his style.

The reason why I have put an Amendment on the Order Paper in regard to milk is that in dealing with what I regard as the first essential step of a national nutrition policy I wish to get as wide and general agreement as I can in this House and also outside, in favour of doing something which, although it introduces considerable changes, does make a practical proposition. When one considers the question of including this proposition in the national nutrition policy—I am not now dealing with the question as to whether it ought to be free meals or milk—one realises that there must be some deliberate plan to help the parents with their children's food. I say that because I am perfectly certain that such a plan will sooner or later become inevitable. It will become common ground between members of all parties for the purpose of dealing with the problem of population which, although it does not seem a big problem to us now, will be an enormous problem in the future. We shall have to establish some definite help of that kind, or else a system of family allowances in connection with our system of paying wages, or both, if there is to be any chance of stemming the fall of population. I probably shall not be alive when that is fully accomplished, but I suggest that such a scheme will become inevitable.

In that connection let me say, in passing, how much I have always regretted the lack of understanding of hon. Members of the Opposition when they were in office, of my Amendment in Standing Committee to the Agricultural Wages Bill, under which a family allowance system might have been introduced in regard to agricultural wages. They did not take the trouble to understand what it meant. With regard to the question of better nutrition, let me quote from Sir F. Gowland Hopkins, President of the Royal Society. He said: This country is now courageously facing the housing problem. It is a great mistake to suppose that the problem of nutrition is of less importance. Much attention is being given to the development of the physical training; but to provide gymnastics for the ill-fed partakes of the ridiculous. Adequate nutrition is the primary basis of good health. We on these benches are not convinced that the primary problem is one of under-nutrition, although there is some under-nutrition. We are convinced that the problem is one of malnutrition, avoidable and unavoidable malnutrition, that malnutrition which arises from poverty, when families with a limited income have to provide meals of varying make-up and composition. Mainly through lack of money these meals are composed in such a way that, while they do not result in starvation, do result in malnutrition in an enormous proportion of cases. On that point let me quote from an article written by Major-General Sir Robert McCarrison, Director of Nutrition Research in India. He says: In an examination of the youngest group of children attending elementary schools under the London County Council, 1,635 unselected five-year-old children revealed the presence of one or more of various abnormalities (knock-knee, bow-legs, spinal curvature and mis-shapen chest walls) in 1,433, or 87 per cent. That is in London, a place where unemployment is not anything like as bad as it is in some other districts, and these are in the main diseases or defects of malnutrition rather than of under-nutrition. That brings me to the reasons why we prefer our Amendment with regard to milk, although I must say that I prefer the Motion of hon. Members above the Gangway to the Amendment under dis- cussion. I entirely agree with the necessity for a further extension of the provision of meals in districts such as those in the County of Durham for which the hon. Member spoke, and if it is the fact that these districts do not at present give any meals at all it is simply because the state of the rates is such that it is quite impossible for them to provide meals, not because they believe that the children are getting enough. Something should be done on the problem of local rates to enable local authorities to do a duty which they wish to do. Speaking as the chairman of a local education committee I think that in many parts of the country there will be a strong feeling of resentment at the idea that elementary school children must have their main meal free, although I agree with the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) that to talk about demoralisation is absolute nonsense. Although some of us can afford to do without it, there is hardly any one who refuses to take his £400 a year, less Income Tax, and none of us feels demoralised by receiving it. Nobody feels demoralised by living in a subsidised house.

Mr. Ede

Or carrying on a subsidised business.

Sir F. Acland

Half the industries of the country are now on the dole, and nobody feels demoralised because of it. In the new senior schools which are now being built in the county of Devon a proper room is provided for meals and excellent meals are provided at a cost of 3d. per day, which is paid readily and willingly. It helps us to get children from the surrounding villages into the new schools. And the 3d. is not a subsidised price. It pays for the meals and for reasonable overhead charges. Of course many children still bring their dinners, which are warmed up at school. I say that in all schools which are now being built there ought to be proper provision for dining-rooms and for cooking meals, and then it will be for the nation to decide whether the meals shall be provided on part payment or wholly free. I look forward to the President of the Board of Education coming down to the county of Devon to see these schools and to having one of these 3d. meals. I shall see to it that none of the schools knows when he is coming or which school he will visit; he will have to take pot luck. I hope he will not feel demoralised at being asked for the 3d. I think it is essential that dining-rooms and provision for cooking meals should be provided in all our new schools and that the children should come to regard it as a normal part of their attendance. That is as far as we think it right to go at the present time. We are not convinced that free meals all round should be provided. You come against a practical difficulty. Until schools have dining-rooms and kitchens it is difficult to see how meals could be provided. That is obvious; and dining-rooms and kitchens are not places which can be easily improvised.

I want to put forward one or two arguments on the subject of milk as an alternative. A rather interesting thing has happened in the West of England lately. We have had a series of talks on the regional broadcast about running the county, and have had conversations between different types of people. One of them was between a travelling grocer who went round the villages and an inspector of food supplies. The travelling grocer said that the most interesting change which had taken place in the last 20 years was the large amount of tinned milk he now sold in the country districts. People naturally wrote to the Regional station, complaining that it should be necessary in the villages to sell tinned milk, and in summing up the series of talks, as I had to do, I made this comment which perhaps explains the matter—namely, that if a family of five has a pint of milk per head per day it means 8s. 9d. per week, which is, of course, an impossible amount for them to spend on one article of food, however valuable it may be. It is difficult to show the virtues and advantages of milk without quotations from many eminent authorities. I am unwilling to do that, but I must say that I have become more and more impressed with the strength of the milk case as I have worked with that practical body, the Children's Minimum Council.

One has to admit that milk by itself is not a wholly perfect and sufficient food for every one at every stage of life, but there is no doubt that milk with the addition of a little cod liver oil or orange juice forms a complete and perfect diet for younger children. That is a fact, and of nothing else can it be said that it needs so little supplementing and balanc- ing to provide all those mysterious factors which are necessary for perfect nutrition. I am not going to talk about vitamins and calories. I assume that hon. Members know all about them. Let me give one quotation from Sir John Orr, to whom we owe a very great deal for having made this important question a matter of practical politics. He says: It used to be thought that the well-known difference in health and physique between the well-to-do and the poor was due entirely to heredity and environment, but when Mr. Walter Elliot was Under-Secretary of State for Scotland in 1927 a test was done of school children to see the effect of improving their diet. It was found that the addition of a pint of milk a day removed 90 per cent. of the deficiencies of the diet and made it approximate in health value to that of the well-to-do, and was followed by a 20 per cent increase in the rate of growth. I have also a quotation from the Mixed Committee of the League of Nations, which puts the matter just as strongly, but I will not weary the House by reading it. With regard to the rate of growth, there is one thing which I have had an opportunity of realising in this House, and in speaking of it I do not wish to offend anybody. It is the duty of the party to which I belong sometimes to go into the Division Lobby with my hon. Friends above the Gangway and sometimes with hon. Members opposite—that may be wholly undesirable, but we are not discussing that now. The point is that when I am in a crowd near the exit of the Lobby with, as often happens, my hon. Friends above the Gangway, and I want to have a word with my hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Mr. R. Acland), who is much the same height as I am—I am just under and he is just over six feet—I have merely to look over the heads of hon. Members in the Lobby. On the other hand, if I am in the Government Lobby, I can never see him and have to wait until he comes out of the Lobby. I reckon there is an average difference of three inches.

An Hon. Member

Brains on one side and brawn on the other.

Sir F. Acland

That may be. If any hon. Member above the Gangway inadvertently strays into the Government Lobby, he will see that there is that difference; and yet hon. Members opposite are the pick of the class from which they come. If there is one thing which is responsible for that, it is a deficiency of diet when young in the case of my hon. Friends above the Gangway, who so admirably represent the class from which they come. I remember that when I was a young civil servant, I was interested in a boys' Rugby club in Notting Hill. We used to beg or borrow bicycles, and I took the young fellows out on Sundays. All of them were boys who could—and often did, if I gave them a chance—knock me out in boxing. When one goes out of London on the north side, one sooner or later comes to a hill, and there the boys used to say, "Take you on, Sir," and would spurt past me at the beginning of the hill, but before getting to the top of the hill they would be pushing their bicycles and I would still be pedalling with a spurt in reserve for the top of the hill. That was not because I was an athlete, for I have never had anything that could be called muscles, but because of the stamina produced by better food and more milk than those young fellows ever had a chance of getting. On the long hill we were in entirely different streets; one could not blame the boys for it, because it was the inevitable result of their surroundings and particularly the food they had had. The fact is—to cut short a long story about milk—that although experts on diet differ, there is absolute uniformity on the policy of the necessity of a pint of milk a day. The Advisory Committee on Nutrition of the Ministry of Health, for instance, is generally agreed that a pint per day is advisable, and it says: A pint of milk per day should be allowed and special care should be taken to secure that the full amount is, in fact, received by each child under 16. The point is that that is the ration which each child should have every day, and it should not be given only to those who, because of poverty, do not get enough at home. As to the suggestion that in some homes, at any rate, from which elementary school children come, the children are receiving a reasonable amount of milk, it is right that we should look at the information that has been collected on that matter, for it is of a remarkable nature. From a mass of information which I have, I will take one case, that of Cardiff, which represents neither the highest nor the lowest, but, as far as I can judge, about the average. The information, which is per head of the family, relates to 1933, and shows that in good middle-class families, which I imagine would not normally send their children to public elementary schools, there was an average consumption of half a pint; in good working-class families, a quarter of a pint; in the new housing areas—this is interesting, for it shows how the amount decreases because of the people having to pay more in rent and therefore having less to spend on milk and other things—it was only one-fifth of a pint; and in poor working-class families, under one-sixth of a pint per head per day.

If it be said that that information relates to the "per head" consumption, and that the children would get more, I must point out that that is not the case, for it was always found that the consumption per head per day was greater where there were no children and less where there were children. Therefore, if anything, the figures are probably exaggerated as far as the amount of milk received by the children is concerned. There you have the clearest evidence that the children do not get a pint per day, or anything like it; indeed, as an hon. Member above the Gangway said, at the present time they only get milk in their tea.

The question is, Can a pint of milk per head per day be supplied? The milk-in-schools scheme has been very useful and has shown the way, and I am very grateful for the improvement which it has introduced; but it is limited and it has got stuck—it is even going down and everybody is trying to stimulate it, although nobody can. Consequently, the whole scheme needs looking into. Less than half the children now receive the third of a pint for a halfpenny which the scheme supplies, and only 7 per cent. of them receive free milk on production of a medical certificate. The scheme is very valuable as far as it goes, but it is very limited, and I am afraid milk is not being supplied to a large enough proportion of the children. In spite of what has been said by an hon. Member opposite, I am convinced that poverty is the main reason for the refusal to pay a halfpenny for the milk. A halfpenny is not much money, but when there are two or three children from the family at school, it mounts up.

Moreover, I know that in the county to which I belong and in which I have gone into the reasons for this refusal, it is a fact that very many of the children give some reason other than poverty when they are asked—a very natural thing for them to do and something for which they cannot be blamed. They say they do not like it or that it does not suit them, whereas really if the 2½d. a week were easily forthcoming, they would be very glad to have the milk. Although I have never heard a proper medical explanation, it may be that milk does not suit some children, and if that be so, I am convinced that the main reason—it is an undoubted fact which we have known during the last 5o years and which my grandfather used to preach most assiduously in Devonshire—is that cold pure milk, especially if drunk quickly, is apt to be indigestible. It needs to be slightly warm, to have a little water added, and to be drunk slowly if it is to be assimilated as the almost perfect food which it is.

It may be said that milk cannot be supplied to all the schools, and I agree that there is difficulty now in supplying it, particularly in the rural districts, where there ought to be no difficulty. Many of the schools in the county to which I belong are very small ones—as is the case in other parts of the country—and many of the suppliers have to supply only about 20 bottles containing a third of a pint each a day, which makes less than a gallon altogether, at a payment of only is. 3d. a gallon, a low retailing margin and subject to the levy of the Milk Marketing Board. That does not amount to very much, and one can-riot blame the farmers for not being willing to make a special journey to the schools when they can only deliver a small amount under such conditions. However, that difficulty would be very easily overcome if the quantity and consequently the money received by the farmer were increased. I do not believe there are any difficulties, administrative or otherwise, that could not be overcome if the Government were in earnest.

I come now to the effect on distribution, and I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tiverton (Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte), who represents a rural constituency, has been kind enough to come to listen to my remarks on this very practical point. Everybody knows that the thing which threatens, every year more dangerously, to bring about a breakdown of the Milk Marketing Board, as other boards have already broken down, is the increasing surplus of milk which goes to the factories at about 5d. a gallon, or less. On this matter I have exact information, thanks to the courtesy of one of the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, of what would be the effect on this surplus, which is threatening a breakdown in the milk scheme, if the milk-in-schools scheme were broadened as I have suggested. In all the schools affected by the milk-inschools scheme, there are 6,570,000 children, and the present level of consumption of milk from all sources in those schools is 25,000,000 gallons a year. The total of manufacturing milk is at present 407,000,000 gallons a year, so that the milk-in-schools scheme takes only about one-sixteenth of the available surplus. If all the children had a pint of milk each school day, it would amount to 164,000,000 gallons, which would take up about two-fifths of the surplus, and if they had it for 365 days a year, it would take up 300,000,000 gallons, which, taking the present surplus of 407,000,000 gallons, means about three-quarters of the surplus. If that amount were taken from the factories and the factories were made to pay a little more for their milk, it would do no harm; it would cut into the very high profits which are at present being made by the factories and would not mean that they would have to add anything to the price of the products which they turn out; and it would be better for the producers of the milk.

There are two more points to which I would like to refer. The first is the cost. I have heard estimates of £6,000,000 and £8,000,000, and I was surprised to hear £10,000,000 stated. The cost would obviously depend on the arrangement made between the Milk Marketing Board and the Government. I am not suggesting that it should be done on a basis which would make a fortune for the farmers, but obviously if all that milk could be sold at a shilling a gallon, or even less, it would make a great difference and would preserve the marketing scheme, which is at present threatened with collapse. My second point is this. People will ask: Would you provide a pint of milk per head per day for all children, whether they can afford to pay for it or not? I take exactly the same line on this matter as I take about school books or school arithmetics. I say that the milk is as necessary as either the books or the arithmetics. But we do not dream of charging parents, even those who can perfectly well afford to pay, for the books or arithmetics. If the milk is as necessary as I believe it to be, I do not see why the parents should be charged for it either. Putting it in another way, I believe that milk is a necessary medicine as well as a very pleasant medicine and that we ought to see that the children get it.

I conclude with a North Country story of a widow who described to the vicar the passing of her husband. She said: "The time came for him to take his medicine but he did not want it and I said that he should have it, because it had been paid for. I got him to take it somehow and he just crowed like a cock, and never spak mair." It would pay this country to take up the attitude of that good lady, and to pay for the milk and see that the children have it because it has been paid for. In my story the medicine did not effect a cure, but in this connection let me go back to Sir John Orr's point that milk for school children in the amount suggested would cure nine-tenths of the defects which at present exist, leaving the remainder, at any rate, a manageable proposition which could be isolated and dealt with in other ways. Let me repeat a valuable figure quoted by the Mover of the Motion. The lowest estimate of what preventable ill-health costs us is £200,000,000 a year, and I hope that the House with that figure in mind will press on the Government the practical possibility of making a start in the direction in which hon. Members above the Gangway want to go by giving all round a pint of milk a day to every school-child.

5.49 p.m.

Mr. W. Astor

It is a most encouraging feature of politics to-day that all parties are taking a great interest in this question of nutrition. Though the situation as regards nutrition is not as bad as it might be made out by taking certain carefully selected figures from the works of Sir John On and others, yet no one on this side of the House or anywhere else would pretend that it is satisfactory. But I submit it is a false antithesis to say that you should either spend money on subsidies to industry or spend it on subsidising nutrition, because in so far as trade and industry revive and people are put into employment and into progressively better employment, to that extent poverty, which we are often told is the main cause of malnutrition, is decreased. The trouble with which we are faced is to know the best use to make of the resources of the Government in order to secure that the whole body politic shall be healthy.

A great deal has already been done and the Government deserve much credit for being the first administration to tackle this problem directly. But I am sure that the Government themselves are convinced that a further move must be made, and I hope that one of the first steps taken will be the establishment of canteens in all schools where children, whether they are necessitous or not, whether they live at a distance from the school or near the school, will be able to get hot dinners at cheap prices. The Medical Research Council has told us of the serious results of malnutrition or wrong nutrition. By providing such meals at cheap prices we would give the children a chance of getting one meal a day containing the proper constituents, cooked in the most scientific manner. The report of the Medical Research Council mentions many cases in which such a scheme would be helpful. There is the case of the child who is given a few pence with which to purchase food. Naturally children very often spend more of the money on sweets than on better forms of food. Or there is the case of the child both of whose parents are out of work, who is able to get only cold bread with lard or margarine and who does not get the proper hot meals which it ought to have.

The medical officer of the Board of Education has recommended a policy such as I have indicated in the case of children living at a distance from school. We hope that meals will be made available to all children and will be provided free in the case of necessitous children. I take the liberty of saying that the board's estimate of the cost of providing such meals is a little high. The figure of 5d. has been quoted, but experience in voluntary nursery schools where meals have been provided, suggests that it can often be done at 3d. or 4d. Many of the voluntary nursery schools have had to do it on rather meagre resources and have succeeded in a remarkable way, indicating that some of the estimates of the cost which have been made are exaggerated. With the facilities which boards and local education authorities would have for bulk purchase, there is no reason why the cost should not be kept low. Parents of limited means could spend the money required for feeding the children, with better results through the school canteen, than by buying the food individually and cooking it at home. Bulk purchase and bulk cooking would make it more economical.

Much has been done in the nursery school movement, and those who are interested in nutrition sincerely hope that nursery schools will one day become universal and indeed compulsory. Until that day comes, it is to be hoped that the lessons which have been learned in the nursery schools on this question of feeding will be put to use in the elementary and secondary schools. As regards the supply of milk, it is to be hoped that there will be intensive propaganda, not alone by the Government but by Members of all parties, to bring its advantages to the attention of parents. In all classes of the community there are some parents who are more alive than others to the advantages of milk as a food, as there are parents who take more care than others about the feeding of their children. It is true that poverty is a factor in some cases, but certainly not in all. Many school teachers tell one that the children who do not take milk are not always from the poorest homes. If hon. Members opposite through their political organisations, and through such bodies as the Women's Co-operative Guild, and hon. Members on this side also, would take advantage of every occasion to press the importance of this matter upon parents and to educate the parents on this point, much could be done. There are many children now who can spend a few pence a week in going two or three times to the pictures. That money might be spent with greater advantage on milk.

Mr. A. Bevan

What grey lives they would be compelled to lead.

Mr. Astor

One realises the great temptation there is to the child to spend the money on the pictures rather than on milk. No one blames the child, but the parent ought to be made more alive to the great advantages of milk as an article of diet.

Mr. Bevan

The hon. Member is making a suggestion which has been made on many occasions. Does he not realise its implication? If working-class folk were so rational as to be able to take that view of their budgets, the hon. Gentleman and his class would have been shifted out long ago.

Mr. Astor

I cannot accept the hon. Member's suggestion at all. Anybody who is considering a budget, whether it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer considering the national Budget or the poor housewife considering her household budget, finds that there are many desirable things on which they would like to spend money. The point which has to be decided is, which are the most desirable things? I hope that we shall hear from the Minister to-night approval of this proposal and a definite programme of what is to be done in the future in this respect. The provision of hot meals cheaply is a way in which we can help to improve nutrition without calling upon the taxpayer for a large sum. It is not a question of subsidy but of organisation. By organisation we can provide cheaper and better meals than the individual working-class mother would be able to provide at a similar cost. We do not want to make this compulsory. We do not propose that it should be free in every case, but we do suggest that it ought to be the next step.

5.57 p.m.

Mr. W. Joseph Stewart

I do not think that the House could debate a question of more vital interest to the nation than that which we are debating this evening. We often discuss here our standing among the nations of the world, and in the last 12 months particularly we have on many occasions discussed armaments and capital ships and our security as a people. Amid all those discussions the thought has often struck me that, while we may have armaments and while we may boast of our standing among the nations, the most vital asset that we or any other people can possess is a healthy, virile manhood and womanhood. We cannot attain that unless we pay attention to the child. It has been said to-day that local authorities have the power, if they wish, to carry into effect provisions for the feeding of necessitous children. It is also being said that some authorities do not carry that Act into operation because they cannot afford to do so.

I wish to place before the House the conditions prevailing in the County of Durham. It is a county which has suffered appreciably during the trade depression, where rates are high, and where the condition of our people is very bad indeed. For public assistance committee purposes we levy a rate of 8s. 4¾d., against an average for the country of 2s. 11¼d. The rateable value per head in Durham is £3 14s., against an average for England and Wales of£7 5s. I now come to a point which is of vital importance to us as a county, as far as providing that which is so necessary in the life of our children is concerned. The produce of a 1d. rate per unit of average attendance in our elementary schools in Durham is 1s. 8d., in Cheshire it is 5s., in Surrey it is 9s. 1d., and in Glamorgan it is 1s. 10d. We are placed in this position in Durham that although we wish to do the very best for our children, in the process we have to levy a very heavy rate. For elementary education we have a rate of 5s.1¼against 2S. 1d. in Cheshire and 1s. 6½d. in Surrey. We have to take this into consideration as an education authority, in looking after the best interests of our children in that county. We have 67,900 persons receiving Poor Law relief, and we have to expend on that £1,128,894.

We have asked the Government time and again, while we have been doing our best in the interests of our children, that they should come to our aid and give more than they do give in grants as far as the educational side and the feeding of our children are concerned. The percentage of insured unemployed in Durham is 26.3, against an average for the country of 13.1. One can quite understand that in a county where we have this large percentage of insured unemployed, no matter what our desires may be in regard to looking after the best interests of our children, we are somewhat handicapped through lack of funds. But in the midst of it all, from October, 1933, to October, 1936, we have provided in the administrative county of Durham 21,043,219 milk meals, and we are daily giving to our children in the county—25,000 of them—those meals. It is costing the authorities £28,359 per year. We would like to do more, and we would like to provide solid meals for our children, because we realise this, that in a county which is hard-hit through industrial depression, where rates are high, and where unemployment is rife, there may not be that going into thousands of our homes which would provide adequate meals for the children who are attending our elementary schools.

It has been suggested in various reports submitted by medical officers of health that malnutrition is not so apparent as one would think it should be in the circumstances, but I would like to put the position as I see it. I remember reading a report submitted by the Unemployment Assistance Board in 1936, in which it is mentioned that the children in the Special Areas appeared to be well clothed and well fed, and there was no apparent suggestion that those children were suffering from malnutrition. But that report follows on and says that the women in those areas were showing signs of the continued battle against poverty. What is happening in the Special Areas is this: You may not get that amount of malnutrition that you anticipate to find there. The reason for that is, to an appreciable extent, that the mothers in our homes are going without in order that the children might be supplied. I submit that in the interests of the children and to help the Special Areas the Government ought to see their way clear to give, not a percentage of the cost of providing those meals, but the whole no per cent., so as to give a better chance to our children and to the local authorities who have not got the necessary finance to carry this work out as they would like to do. I remember that in 1926, while the national stoppage took place, we in Durham spent approximately, during that stoppage, £300,000 in feeding the school children, and the results were apparent. Those children got two regular meals every day —good meals—and the parents were willing that they should have them. After a few months that regular giving of good food showed in their little bodies, and they were much better physically at the end of the stoppage than they were at the beginning. That was a lesson to us in Durham county, and although it was a large amount of money to be spent by a local authority, still we did believe—and we do to-day—that it was money well spent, because it helped to build up the child life of our county and kept away from it the horrors of a general stoppage in the country.

Remembering those things, I, as a Member for Durham, would like to do more than we are doing in the interests of our children, but, as I have already said, our finances are limited, and it is owing to that fact that we cannot embark upon a scheme of greater magnitude than that on which we have embarked at the moment. Consequently, I firmly believe that many children in Durham and perhaps in other places are not getting exactly what they ought to get if things were normal. I do not understand why, in twentieth century Britain, it should be necessary to debate in the Mother of Parliaments the question of feeding the child life of our land. If the Government, who are responsible, would see that industries were established in the Special Areas and that work was provided for the parents of those children, it would not be necessary in any township of the country to provide for the feeding of children, and I do urge the Government to deal with this question and to give us 100 per cent. of the cost, and also to consider the question of seeing to it that industries are diverted from the South of England and set up in the Special Areas. Then we shall be able to feed our own children without any Government aid.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. Lovat-Fraser

I should like to reecho the words used by the hon. Lady the Member for East Islington (Miss Cazalet), who moved the Amendment, that thanks are due to the hon. Member who introduced this subject and gave us the opportunity of discussing it. Questions regarding children will become more and more frequently discussed as the years go by. I entirely agree with what was said by the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) about the problems that may arise in the future out of the decline in the population. If I had my way, we should have a Ministry of Childhood. At the present time matters affecting children are dealt with by the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Health, the Board of Education, and the Home Office. I would have the interests of the children placed in the hands of one Ministry, devoting its whole time to dealing with the needs of the children. There are such bodies in other countries. There is in the United States of America a Federal Children's Bureau, where children's problems are delegated to one Ministry, which devotes itself entirely to that work. Malnutrition is tending to increase in all large centres of population. It is not only in Great Britain that we have this problem to face, but in the other industrial countries of Europe as well. We have, I think, faced this problem in a wise and useful way. The Government may not have done all that perhaps some of us think they should have done, but they have done a good deal. Sir George Newman, in his report to the Ministry of Health, has said: There can be no question that the nutrition of the English people is better today than at any past period of which we have record. He goes on to say: But that does not say or mean that present standards of health and nutrition cannot or should not be improved. Of just under 2,000,000 children submitted to routine examination, 1.11 per cent. were malnourished and required treatment and 1.28 per cent. were undernourished and needing observation. The Ministry which deals with the problem of nutrition sent out a circular in September, 1934, directing that any child should receive free meals who showed any symptoms, however slight, of inability to take full advantage of its education. In the following month the milk-in-schools scheme was inaugurated, as a result of which, during 1935, 2,250,000 children and juveniles received a daily ration of milk at a reduced price and about 400,000 children received it free. It cannot, therefore, be said that the Government have not faced the position. Although most of us would have wished the Government to go further, we cannot refuse them the praise that they deserve.

There is no question that unemployment is largely responsible for what malnutrition there is. That is proved from the figures of the Nutrition Committee of the British Medical Association and the Advisory Committee on Nutrition of the Ministry of Health. One of the satisfactory features of the decrease of unemployment is that it has had the effect of decreasing malnutrition. I have here a letter which I quoted the last time I had the honour of speaking in the House on this subject, written by Dr. E. H. T. Nash, who is medical officer of health for the borough of Heston and Isleworth. Writing to the "Times," he said: A headmaster coming from a semi-rural school to a new school in an area where parents were in and out of work found that the children could not last more than half the time at their games and lessons, and that after dancing for a short spell they shuffled their feet instead of lifting them from the floor…. Part of the malnutrition is due to money wasted on what Gissing called 'windy deficiencies.' At a tea given to children in Dr. Nash's area, he picked out 13 children suffering from malnutrition. In 12 cases either the father was dead or had been out of work for the six months previous. Dr. Nash had not time to go into the thirteenth case. It is proved, therefore, that children are suffering from malnutrition as the result of unemployment. It is a stimulus to us in fighting unemployment to know that it has that result.

Milk does not suit everybody. My own recollection is that as a child I did not like milk, and, as an hon. Member said, milk may cause indigestion and other ailments. Some children, of course, simply refuse to take it, and it will be the function of those who are in charge of the distribution of milk to provide them with substitutes that will prove equally advantageous. All children take far too much tea. I take this from the "Times" of 20th November, 1936: The Hannah Dairy Research Institute at Kirkhill, Ayr, have published the results of an 'inquiry into the drinking habits of children of school age, with special reference to milk drinking,' by Dr. Norman C. Wright … Of the 13,317 children included in the inquiry, 7,017 did not drink milk at all, while 4,323 took it only once daily.… These results are in marked contrast to those obtained for tea drinking. Only 5 per cent. of the children failed to take tea at least once, while 50 per cent. took it three or more times in the day. Over 90 children took tea five times daily, and one-third of these being under 10 years of age. That is obviously very unsatisfactory, for tea is not a good drink for young children. That is a matter which those dealing with nutrition will have to face. Another matter that will have to be dealt with is the amount of smoking that goes on among young children, for it helps to bring about bad health. Mr. Valentine A. Bell, Principal of Battersea Day Continuation School, had an investigation made on behalf of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trustees. He found that signs of underfeeding and malnutrition were obvious at Jarrow, Hebburn, South Shields, Sunderland and Bishop Auckland, where he was struck by the pinched faces and undersized bodies of several of the boys. Lads had to be excused physical exercises because they were not strong enough to stand the strain. Much of this inefficiency, in the opinion of the superintendents, was due to too much cigarette smoking. It is sometimes said that the women of the working class do not possess—

Mr. Cove

Rubbish!

Mr. Lovat-Fraser

I am saying that it is said—I do not agree with it—that the mothers cannot cook and that they give their children inferior food. There is abundant authority for proving that that is not correct, and that allegations of unwise expenditure by mothers are grossly exaggerated. The Mersey-side Committee in its report said that there was no evidence of consumption of tinned food, except condensed milk, in families below the poverty line. There is much, of course, in regard to this question that one could dwell upon. I am satisfied that everybody realises the importance of it. I was very interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. J. Brown), whom I have the privilege of calling my friend, quoting Robert Burns. I am going to quote him too. Robert Burns says: To make a happy fireside clime For weans and wife Is the true pathos and sublime Of human life. How can you have a happy fireside clime if the children are underfed? May I mention a little experience of my own, quite a physchological matter too, not very long ago? I was in Edinburgh and wanted to see the house where lived Clarinda, a lady to whom Burns wrote some beautiful poems. I went to a shabby street where she had lived and there was nobody but a little girl of whom I could inquire. I asked her, "Can you tell me where Clarinda lived?" She nodded that she did not know. I repeated the question, and added, "Clarinda, the friend of Robert Burns." "Oh, yes," she said, "I know that; that is the house there." The little girl was obviously very much under-fed and under-nourished. Her cheeks were shrunken and drawn in, and her little hands and arms were pain- fully thin, so much so that for the rest of the day I had a kind of vague feeling of sorrow. I thought to myself what a beautiful poem Robert Burns would have written if he had met that girl. I strongly believe in this movement for combating malnutrition, and I am glad to have the opportunity of hearing the excellent discussion that we have had this afternoon.

6.26 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education (Mr. Shakespeare)

Perhaps it would be convenient if I intervened at this stage to state the views of the Government on this vital question. I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman who moved this Motion, dealing with a subject which, perhaps more than any other, lends itself to misrepresentation. The hon. Gentleman, I think, made a very fair statement from his point of view and avoided misrepresentation. He slipped up in quoting some London figures, but that was unintentional and I shall deal with them in a moment. The Government welcome the discussion on a vital question like the physical welfare of school children, and I personally welcome the conversion of many hon. Gentlemen opposite to the recognition of the vital part that nutrition plays in physical welfare. I do not remember that in 1924 or 1929 or 1930 or 1931 this question was ever raised by any Member of the party opposite. On the contrary, since the National Government have been responsible for the last six years this question has been constantly before them, both at home and abroad. Only last September I was one of a delegation at Geneva on this subject, following up the lead that had been set by two British delegates the year before on the important question of nutrition.

No one can read the chapter on nutrition and school feeding in the Annual Report of the School Medical Officer, which was quoted by the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), without being impressed by the unanimity of the school medical officers on the fact that there is no general deterioration in health in spite of the strain of economic circumstances. I put it no higher than that. One might well say, as the hon. Lady the Member for East Islington (Miss Cazalet) said in her very convincing speech, that that chapter was very reassuring. Indeed, anybody who is interested, whether he be an expert like a school medical officer or attached to local government service, who compares the state of children now even with the state 10 years ago who compares their appearance, their alertness and physical well-being, must clearly see the great improvement that has taken place. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) speaking in 1928 on this point, said: I invite you who feel depressed to go through any public elementary school and take a look at the fine class rooms, examine the equipment and curriculum; but chief of all, if your school is in a slum district, look at the children, from the babies to the boys and girls in the upper classes. Pessimism will flee away if you can also stand in the playground and see the happy boys and girls come bounding out of school, romping, shouting, playing as if life for them had no trouble. He went on to show how, by the cooperation of all concerned, and the advance of medical science, the environmental conditions were being overcome. Let me briefly enumerate the measures taken by the Government, either through legislation or administratively through the Board of Education, in partnership with the local authorities, which have done much to combat and to check what otherwise might have been the serious effects of the depression. There are six weapons on which we rely, and which have been employed to counter the effects of the economic strain. First of all there is the increasing attention given to the state of nutrition in the routine inspections, and the assessment of the state of nutrition on more careful and uniform lines.

Mr. Cove

That is by the doctors.

Mr. Shakespeare

Yes.

Mr. Cove

And we do not know what the standard is.

Mr. Maxton

And that is once in five years.

Mr. Shakespeare

There is also the growing practice of arranging special nutritional surveys at short periods. The second weapon is the increasing provision of supplementary nourishment, whether milk meals or solid meals, for children whose parents are unable to pay. I do not know whether the House realises the very steady progress which has been made in this respect. I have chosen three years to show how steady has been the advance. In the year 1924–25 132 local education authorities provided for some 70,000 children 7,500,000 free meals, whether they were solid or milk meals. In 1930–31 153 local education authorities provided 185,000 children with 27,000,000 free meals, and in 1935–36, 235 local education authorities provided 479,000 children with 86,500,000 free meals. In other words, in that interval the number of local education authorities providing free meals had grown from 132 to 235, the number of children fed had increased sevenfold, the number of meals provided had increased II times and the cost had quadrupled. Clearly there has been great progress in the provision of free supplementary nourishment. In spite of the fact that distress to-day is less than it was in 1931 there are three times the number of free meals provided to-day as compared with 1931.

The hon. Member for Seaham raised the question of Circular 1443, of December, 1935, which was issued in agreement with the Association of Education Committees. That Circular made plain what was the qualification for free extra nourishment, and laid down that it covered the cases of all children who needed it and were unable to pay for it. Such provision could be made if a child showed the slightest symptom of inability, through lack of food, to profit by its education. The House will note that it is not left to nutritional surveys to take note of these symptoms. It was made plain that teachers and others who are in constant touch with the children could make recommendations on this basis. The hon. Member for Seaham asked about the income scale, and recalled that, as has always been the practice ever since 1906, when this extra nourishment is given it is the duty of the local education authority to recover the cost from those parents who can afford to pay. We at the Board of Education do not lay down any scales, but the local authorities lay down a scale which assures that the children of those who are employed at low wages or who are unemployed come within the category of those who can be provided with free meals.

Mr. Shinwell

That is perfectly true, but only if, after examination by the school medical officer, they are found to possess symptoms which indicate that they are unable to absorb education.

Mr. Shakespeare

Of course, we look at it from an educational point of view. We say that where, through lack of food, they are unable to profit by the education given, free nourishment shall be provided.

Mr. Maxton

You say the teacher may be the judge of that.

Mr. Shakespeare

Certainly the teacher may recommend a case as coming within that category, and the child is subsequently examined by the school medical officer. Let me meet a point which is sometimes made that children may not be able to profit by physical training. Education now includes physical training, and, if a teacher thinks there is the slightest symptom of a child not being able to profit by physical training on the ground of lack of food, free extra nourishment can be provided.

The third weapon on which we rely is what is commonly called the milk-in-schools scheme, and over 2,500,000 children have been provided for by facilities which cover school attendances of over 90 per cent. of the elementary school population. One hon. Member referred to this as the greatest single nutritional experiment in the world, and I think that is true. We have only to read the glowing accounts of School Medical Officers in the Chief Medical Officer's report, to see how very widely this scheme has benefited the children. The right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland), who has apologised for being absent now, said that if milk were given free up to a pint a day, far more children would take it. In his view the reason why only just under 50 per cent. of the school children took this cheap milk, supplied at half price, was that the others could not afford it, that their poverty was a bar. Let me give one or two reasons why that argument cannot be maintained. We are naturally concerned with increasing the scope of this scheme, and would like to see many more children enjoy the benefits of it. With that end in view we sent a skilled investigator last year to find out why no more than 50 per cent. of the children took this free milk. He reported that poverty was not an important reason for non-participation by the other 50 per cent. of the children. In the areas where, owing to distress, there is poverty, and one would expect non-participation to be high, the contrary is the case, and in areas where the people are better off there is very often a low participation.

In a senior school at Brighton only 10 per cent. of the girls took this cheap milk, but in areas like Nelson and Todmorden 73 per cent. of the children participated. In areas like Richmond only 33 per cent. participated. In areas of poverty and distress there is usually high participation. I noticed in a Newcastle paper it was reported that the headmaster of a North of England school had asked his boys how many of them would take free a pint of milk a day, and 128 told him that on no account would they take it, even though it were free. It did not say how many would take it if they were paid to do so. The report of our investigation confirms what has been my own impression since I have been at the Board, that non-participation is due either to indifference on the part of the parents or, more usually, a distaste for milk on the part of the children. I have been into dozens and dozens of classes in the last few months and have asked questions about it, and it is astonishing to find the number of boys and girls who do not take milk, who do not like it and would not have it if it were free. Therefore, I do not attach the same importance to the provision of a pint of free milk, as I am very much afraid that until there has been more publicity about its value there will not be a considerable number of children who will take advantage of the facilities.

The fourth weapon on which the Government rely is the promotion of physical welfare by improving the facilities for and the standard of physical training in the schools. I will not develop this point, but clearly it is obvious that part of the mental and physical improvement among the children is due to the better standard of physical education and recreation in the schools. The fifth weapon on which the Government rely was referred to by the right hon. Member for North Cornwall and the hon. Member for East Fulham (Mr. W. Astor) in his very interesting speech. We are encouraging the provision of meals at school canteens and the building of school canteens where there is a local demand. Indeed, in connection with the reorganisation of our education services, which is actually going on, the senior schools have, as a rule, school canteens at which the children can get at least a good dinner at a reasonable charge. I find that in Kent some 63 public elementary schools have canteens serving dinners to 5,000 children. In East Sussex some 25 elementary schools serve 1,800 children, and in East Suffolk 15 schools serve 1,208 children. Those who are interested in the subject may have seen the interesting pamphlet, No. 93, on the East Suffolk canteens.

Mr. Cove

Has the hon. Member any figures of the same nature for Glamorgan-shire, Monmouthshire, Durham and other distressed areas?

Mr. Shakespeare

I think that Durham does not provide meals. I do not think that Glamorganshire does either.

Hon. Members

Why?

Mr. Shinwell

Is it not true that the reason why some county councils do not provide meals is because of the high rating burdens, which make it impossible for them to undertake the task?

Mr. Shakespeare

I would not say that. Clearly one reason is that in the larger counties they have to deal with smaller and more scattered populations, and the authorities do not find it an economic proposition. I am speaking particularly of the rural areas. We encourage the building of canteens in those circumstances and the provision of dinners. I find that the charge in the canteen arrangement for meals varies from 1s. to 1s. 8d. per week. That charge does not, as a rule, include overhead costs. The hon. Member for Seaham seemed to question the cost of 5d. per meal, but the figure was obtained after ascertaining from local authorities all over the country their cost, and taking the average. No doubt in the rural areas, the cost, including a fair appreciation for overhead charges, may come out a little higher.

Mr. G. Griffiths

Is that for elementary or secondary schools?

Mr. Shakespeare

I think it is for elementary schools. Another important point is the instruction of boys and girls in the new science of nutrition. It takes the form of teaching cookery, and 91 per cent. of the girls, aged 11 years or over, who receive instruction in cookery, also are instructed in nutrition. They are taught such matters as food values, the cost of food and the planning of meals. I attach great importance to that teaching, especially when the girls use the implements that they are likely to find in their own homes. They are taught a knowledge of dietetics and what are the best foods to cook. I am not sure that the experts and the scientists have yet made up their minds as to what is a completely balanced diet. Views change, and I have not the slightest doubt that all of us here will live to see the vitamin discredited. There may be some other discovery. Nevertheless, in spite of all that, there is not the slightest doubt that there is much ignorance among all sections of the community as to what constitutes a balanced diet.

If the hon. Member for Seaham will not take my view on this matter, perhaps he will take that which was expressed in the report of the Mixed Committee on the Problem of Nutrition, set up by the Assembly of the League of Nations. In their very interesting book they said: Ignorance of the principles and main features of the modern science of nutrition is one of the commonest causes of deficiencies in nutrition. That is abundantly proved by the information at the Committee's disposal. Ignorance is prevalent, not only among the poorer classes of the population, where it aggravates the ill effects of lack of resources; investigations made in the wealthiest countries have revealed the fact that defective, inadequate or ill-considered nutrition exists, and that even among the wealthier classes there is ill-considered nutrition due to inadequate knowledge. If, for example, I were to ask the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) what were the relative nutritional values in an equal weight of herring, white fish and oyster, he probably would not know.

Mr. Buchanan

The hon. Gentleman had better give me the answer.

Mr. Cove

Give him the oyster.

Mr. Buchanan

I will take a bit of each.

Mr. Shakespeare

People who have studied the matter tell us that, taking equal weight of the fish—if we may call the oyster a fish—herring is three or four times as nourishing—

Mr. Broad

As tripe.

Mr. Shakespeare

Tripe is also very nourishing—and that the herring is 39 times more nourishing than an equal weight of oyster. A great deal can be done by cookery classes and lectures for children, to enable them to understand this new science of nutrition and to take advantage of their knowledge. I have not the slightest doubt that the digestions of the next generation will be improved as a result. I do not believe that the mothers of my generation ever received such instruction.

I should now like to give very briefly some figures in relation to the physical welfare of children that are given in the report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. The House will remember that, in his survey, children were divided into four categories, A, B, C and D, according to whether their nutrition was excellent, normal, slightly abnormal or bad. Out of 1,687,000 children examined in England and Wales in 1935, 14.6 per cent. were found to be excellent, 74.1 per cent. were normal, 10.6 per cent. were slightly subnormal and 0.7 per cent. were bad. In regard to London, I think the hon. Member for Seaham unintentionally made a slip in giving his particulars, because he assumed that every child that was not excellent was in ill-health. Out of 189,200 children, 08 per cent., that is, 152, were bad and 10,646, or 5.67 per cent., were slightly subnormal. The rest were satisfactory. It does not follow that if a child is slightly subnormal the primary cause is lack of food. The cause may be environmental, like bad housing and lack of sleep; or functional. It may be the result of disease, infectious or otherwise. I do not know whether any hon. Member has had an opportunity of seeing the experiment recently conducted at Aldershot on the sub-standard recruit. When I asked the doctor in charge to what he attributed the improvement in the physical welfare of those sub-standard recruits, he said that clearly good nutrition was a factor and that intensive physical training was another factor, but that in his judgment the regular hours of routine to which the recruits were subjected was a factor no less important.

I have described the measures upon which the Government rely, and which are revealed in a record of statistics of which any country should be proud; now we have the Motion of the hon. Gentleman for Seaham that all children, re- gardless of their state of health and of the circumstances of their parents, should be fed. In other words, in order to deal with the 10,000 children who were slightly subnormal and the 152 who were bad, out of the 189,000 in London, we are to spend £130,000—just to catch that small number.

Mr. Shinwell

I am very sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but is it not true that all the children who are under the "excellent" standard are in need of more nourishment and, if that be so, why does the hon. Gentleman use only the figure relating to subnormality?

Mr. Shakespeare

If a nutritional survey has shown the state of a child to be normal you cannot put it into the same category as a bad one, where extra nourishment may be needed. If 89 per cent. of the school children are found, by survey, to be satisfactory, the hon. Gentleman's proposal would mean that in order to deal with 11 per cent. you have to take the 89 per cent. by the scruff of the neck and feed them, whether their parents, the education authority or the children themselves want it or not. That is what it amounts to.

Mr. Shinwell

May I correct that impression, if it is in the mind of the hon. Gentleman? What I said was that if the children require food they ought to have it as an assistance towards education, and that if the parents desire to pay they ought to do so; moreover if the children do not want to go to school for their meals and prefer their meals at home, they should remain at home. That was the case I tried to put.

Mr. Shakespeare

I can deal only with the Motion on the Paper, which says that out of moneys provided by Parliament both meals and milk should be provided. It is true that, when faced with the appalling cost, the hon. Gentleman did say that, in certain cases, if parents wanted to pay they should be allowed to do so, but if you are to provide free milk and meals at a cost amounting to over £40,000,000 during the school period, or over £60,000,000 if you feed the children all the year round—

Mr. Shinwell

I did not ask for that.

Mr. Shakespeare

—out of moneys provided by Parliament, it is no good saying that the parents who want to pay may do so. There is not a Member of this House who, if he were asked to spend £40,000,000 to promote and improve the physical welfare and nutrition of school children, would not take one-thousandth part of Mat sum and devise a better way of spending it. If the children of Durham, Monmouth or Glamorgan show signs of being slightly subnormal, it would be better to spend one-hundredth part of that large sum on these children and not dissipate this largesse all over the country, at Bournemouth, Hastings, London and elsewhere, where the same need is not shown. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman listened-in to the boxing match the other night.

Mr. Shinwell

I was here.

Mr. Shakespeare

The House was up.

Mr. Maxton

And Petersen was down!

Mr. Shakespeare

You might as well suggest that to knock out Neusel you must first of all knock out all the spectators at the Harringay Ring.

Mr. Maxton

Why not?

Mr. Shakespeare

I have tried to show on what plan the Government rely to improve the physical welfare of the nation. I should not like anyone to infer that we consider the present state of affairs satisfactory. We are always watching the position. Let me give very shortly one or two examples of how the present powers exercised by local authorities could be more fully utilised. As regards the provision of free nourishment, we are constantly in touch with local authorities to make quite sure that their income scales do not prevent children who really need extra nourishment getting it. The other day I answered a question about the scales in a certain county which we considered unreasonably high. Then, again, we are pressing on local authorities the importance of more frequent nutritional surveys to make sure that the symptoms of malnutrition are detected at once. We are pressing on with physical training in the schools. About that I need say nothing; it will be the subject of debate soon. Fourthly, we are considering how we can increase the scope of the milk-in-schools scheme—whether we can do it by introducing a delicate flavour into the milk, or by intensive publicity by every agency at our disposal. Lastly we are gathering evidence here of the cases of those local education authorities who are pursuing a forward canteen policy, and we hope to make an attractive pamphlet which will be sent round to all local education authorities to show how beneficial a good system of dinners at canteens can be.

For all these reasons, I hope the House will reject the Motion. It is quite impracticable, unnecessary, and, I think, grandiose. As far as we are concerned, the Amendment moved by the hon. Lady for East Islington, and so ably supported by the hon. Member for Twickenham, does, in fact, give a truer indication of the present position, and shows the line of advance along which we hope to go.

7.5 p.m.

Mr. Morgan Jones

I should very much doubt whether friends of the hon. Gentleman opposite, after having listened to his speech, will feel that he has presented a convincing case on behalf of the Government. I would like to take up one of his first remarks. For some unaccountable reason he went out of his way to congratulate hon. Members on this side for beginning to take an interest in this matter. I wonder on what ground the hon. Gentleman presumed to make a statement of that sort?

Mr. Ede

Ignorance.

Mr. Jones

There is no party in the State that has more consistently drawn attention to the necessity of looking after the physical well being of children than has this party.

Mr. Shakespeare

I was referring to nutrition.

Mr. Jones

I assumed that the hon. Gentleman regarded nutrition as being somewhat remotely, at any rate, connected with physical well-being. We can claim that the pioneers even in the matter of nursery schools belonged to this party. Rachel and Margaret Macmillan were associated in the earlier days with the Labour movement.

Mr. Astor

These ladies left their connection with the Labour party and supported Conservative candidates because they received more help for their nursery schools and more enthusiastic support from Conservatives.

Mr. Cove

And more private money.

Mr. Jones

In an answer which I gave as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education when we were in power in 1931, I said that we had then provided for 40 nursery schools and we had before us plans for another 40 schools. I wonder how many the hon. Gentleman's friends have approved since then. It comes ill from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education to speak to us about our lack of interest in nutrition, for it was his Government which issued not only Circular 1443, but Circular 1447. Circular 1447 made it abundantly clear that there was to be no help to these children unless there was evidence of malnutrition. It was because of the pressure brought to bear on the Government that they shifted their ground slightly and introduced Circular 1443. Even Circular 1443 was somewhat parsimonious in its attitude to this matter. It said that the Ministry cannot regard the fact that parents' income falls within an authority's scale as by itself justifying the provision of free meals, so that that is not a big departure from the Ministry's earlier stand. When the hon. Gentleman next feels inclined to call attention to people's sin he might begin to do a little reclamation among his own friends first.

There are two proposals before the House—that submitted in an excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), and that submitted by the hon. Member for East Islington (Miss Cazalet), and between the two there is a great gulf fixed. It is no use our beguiling ourselves into the belief that there is no substantial and fundamental difference between them. The hon. Lady is content with things as they are. She invites the House to welcome the Measures taken by the Government to promote the physical welfare of children, recognising the beneficial results already achieved, and so on. We are dissatisfied. We think that much more fundamental changes should take place, and that a much more radical attitude should be taken up in regard to this matter.

The hon. Lady, in a reasoned speech, put forward the case that the Government have already faced up to these problems, and among the measures she cited was that of slum clearance. Let us all agree that slum clearance, as far as it goes, is excellent. We are heartily in favour of it. But she forgets a point which the right hon. Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) brought out. It is well known that in certain areas very close examination and close comparisons have been made between the effect of giving milk to certain children in the new housing estates as compared with children who have remained in slums; and the singular result has been arrived at that, in point of fact, the child in the slums profited more than the child in the housing estate. The reason was that where milk was available in the housing estates the extra cost of house rent interfered and prevented the full benefits being achieved. The more you move people out of the slums into the new housing estates, good as that may be, the more you must face the fundamental problem of giving these people a much larger purchasing power to meet the new situation.

We on this side boldly put forward a new proposition, that there should be made available for these children a free meal per day. I am afraid that the Parliamentary Secretary and ourselves take a totally different view of the place of this school meal in the education system. I have the advantage, if it is an advantage, of being an old teacher, and I take this view—I am sure that my teaching friends in this House on both sides take the same view—that there is an educational advantage in getting children to sit down together to a meal. The provision of the meal at midday should be part of the service provided by the school, just as the provision of books is part of the school service. That is not to say that every child must participate, but there is provided for all children a free meal. That is where we stand, and we need not in the least degree apologise for it. The sitting down of children together to a well-organised meal not only has an advantage physically, but there is an educational advantage to be derived as well.

Why is one driven to this conclusion in favour of a free meal? I know that there are in my part of the country—South Wales—and I dare say the same applies to other parts, well-meaning local authorities who are in every sense desirous of doing all they can to help the children under their charge; but they are handicapped, not by want of the will to help those children, but by want of the means. They would like to give meals to those children, but their rates are so colossal that they cannot face the additional burden unless the State comes to their assistance. In the absence of such assistance, and because of the board's circulars, they are driven to some sort of principle of selection. What happens? They invite teachers to be on the look-out for some child who may be showing tendencies that indicate malnutrition. I do not think that that is quite a fair job to force upon a teacher, because the teacher is not always capable of judging these matters; he has not sufficient technical and scientific knowledge. I will quote a medical authority in support of what I am saying. Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, in an article in this month's "Highway," writes: What proportion of the population is at the present time actually suffering from under-nutrition or malnutrition? It must be admitted that medical officers of health and others who are asked to give an answer to this question in numerical terms are faced with a real difficulty. Except in severe cases, malnutrition in the individual is not necessarily indicated by objective signs which can be certainly or uniformly recognised. It may exist to a degree which, especially in young children and adolescents, will ultimately undermine the health, and yet at a given moment may be leading to no clear-cut symptoms recognisable on simple inspection. Therefore, we are in this position, that, while there are large areas where we might naturally expect evidence of malnutrition, this medical expert tells us that, for all your observation, you may not be able to see evidence of malnutrition, though it may be there nevertheless. Teachers and others are not able to discern it, and, therefore, are not able to certify that malnutrition exists. Quite frankly, I am unwilling to run the risk of there being any children at all suffering from malnutrition owing to lack of capacity to detect the symptoms, and the only way of getting over that difficulty is by providing free meals for all who care to participate in them. That, as my hon. Friend has said, does not mean that everyone must participate, but it does mean that we must provide for all who desire to do so.

Have we any experience to guide us as to the beneficial results of doing this? The hon. Gentleman knows very well that there is such evidence available. I will not take an area like my own in South Wales; I will not take a distressed area, or anything approaching a distressed area; I will take the area of Colchester. I find, in the annual report of the school medical officer for the Borough of Colchester for the year 1935, certain returns, which are contained in the following statement: Arrangements were made for Lexden children recommended for free dinners to be fed at a house near the school, and this has been an improvement. Altogether, 239 individual children received free dinners, 264 received free milk, and 51 were given free cod liver oil. Then follow the results, headed in black type: Alteration in Weight of 33 Children who received Free Dinners for nine months.

Increase 12–18 lbs.	2
Increase 3–6 lbs.	5
Increase 1–3 lbs.	22

These three categories, therefore, accounted for 29 of the 33 children. The next table is as follows:

"Alteration in Weight of 34 Children who received Free Dinners for six months.

Increase 7–12 lbs.	3
Increase 4–7 lbs.	3
Increase 2–4 lbs.	10
Increase ½–2 lbs.	13

Surely, these figures prove abundantly, as a result of practical experience in Colchester—and I could give similar figures with respect to Burnley—that the provision of free meals has enabled certain children to gain weight which otherwise they would not have gained. I submit, therefore, that experience has proved conclusively in certain areas that the provision of free meals has been physically beneficial to large numbers of children.

I want now to turn to some of the items in the armoury of the Board of Education. It is a real arsenal of blunt instruments. I have already referred to the first item—attention to nutrition in respect of routine inspection. The doctors who may go round are in a better position to judge than the teachers, but where you impose upon the teachers the task of spotting those children who may be suffering from malnutrition and those who are not, you are imposing upon them a quite impossible task, as Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins has indicated. The hon. Gentleman said that the number of children in receipt of supplementary nourishment is going up. So far, so good, but I think it is well to remind the House that even now we are only just touching the fringe of the problem. In the year 1935–36, there were 800,000 children attending schools where there were no feeding arrangements whatsoever—not even milk; and there were only 143,000, out of a total of something like 6,500,000, who received free breakfasts, teas or dinners at any time during the year. The highest figure given by the hon. Gentleman this evening did not reach 500,000. So far, so good; I do not complain at all. All that I am saying is that it does not really cover the problem which confronts us at the present time.

I pass over the reference to the provision of milk in schools, because that has been so thoroughly discussed by previous speakers, especially by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Cornwall, and I come to the fifth item, namely, the proposed scheme about which we are to read more during the week-end, namely, the scheme with respect to physical welfare and physical training. I am not going to discuss that now, any more than the hon. Gentleman himself did, but will he tell me what is the good of embarking on a scheme for improving physical welfare unless the children are fed adequately? Are they going to be any better for physical jerks? Really, it is monstrous to suggest calling upon many of these children, who are ill fed, to go through an accentuated course of physical training. I dare say it is all right as far as it goes; I have not seen the scheme yet. The purpose may be all right, namely, to improve the physical welfare of our children; but the purpose will be vitiated unless they have the stamina to avail themselves of it.

Mr. Shakespeare

I did deal with that point, and mentioned that any who showed the slightest sign of undernourishment would qualify for free meals, and so their physical training would be helped.

Mr. Jones

I think I have indicated to the hon. Gentleman that to ask individuals like teachers and others to detect those signs is to ask for what is impracticable. Moreover, when malnutrition is detected, the board refuse to provide an adequate amount of money to deal with it. I do not want to pre-judge the physical training scheme, but I say that it is beginning at the wrong end. First see to the nourishment of these children— see that they have the chance to build up the bodily stamina which they need—and then do your physical jerks if you like. I think it has been shown from this side of the House that our case is well founded, not only in theory and on educational grounds, but on grounds of good health as well, and the experience of those areas

in which it has been tried abundantly proves the wisdom of the Motion which we are submitting.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 126; Noes, 178.

Division No. 66.]	AYES.	[7.28 p.m.
Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke	Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)	Price, M. P.
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)	Harris, Sir P. A.	Pritt, D. N.
Adamson, W. M.	Henderson, J. (Ardwick)	Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Ammon, C. G.	Henderson, T. (Tradeston)	Ridley, G.
Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)	Hicks, E. G.	Riley, B.
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.	Hills, A. (Pontefract)	Ritson, J.
Barr, J.	Hollins, A.	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)
Batey, J.	Hopkin, D.	Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Bevan, A.	Jagger, J.	Rowson, G.
Broad, F. A.	Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)	Salter, Dr. A.
Brooke, W.	John, W.	Sanders, W. S.
Brown, C. (Mansfield)	Jones, A. C. (Shipley)	Seely, Sir H. M.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)	Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)	Sexton. T. M.
Buchanan, G.	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Shinwell, E.
Burke, W. A.	Kelly, W. T.	Short, A.
Cape, T.	Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.	Silverman, S. S.
Chater, D.	Kirby, B. V.	Simpson, F. B.
Cluse, W. S.	Lathan, G.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)
Cocks, F. S.	Lawson, J. J.	Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)
Cove, W. C.	Leach, W.	Smith, E. (Stoke)
Dalton, H.	Lee, F.	Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)	Leonard, W.	Sorensen, R. W.
Day, H.	Leslie, J. R.	Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le Sp'ng)
Dobbie, W.	Logan, D. G.	Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)	Lunn, W.	Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Ede, J. C.	Macdonald, G. (Ince)	Thorne, W.
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)	McEntee, V. La T.	Thurtle, E.
Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)	McGhee, H. G.	Tinker, J. J.
Foot, D. M.	MacLaren, A.	Walkden, A. G.
Frankel, D.	Maclean, N.	Walker, J.
Gallacher, W.	Mainwaring, W. H.	Watkins, F. C.
Gardner, B. W.	Marshall, F.	Watson, W. McL.
Garro Jones, G. M.	Maxton, J.	Welsh, J. C.
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)	Messer, F.	Whiteley, W.
Gibbins, J.	Milner, Major J.	Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Gibson, R. (Greenock)	Montague, F.	Williams, T. (Don Valley)
Green, W. H. (Deptford)	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.	Muff, G.	Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)
Grenfell, D. R.	Oliver, G. H.	Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)	Owen, Major G.	Young, Sir R. (Newton)
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)	Parkinson, J. A.
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)	Pethick-Lawrenee, F. W.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—
Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)	Potts, J.	Mr. Groves and Mr. Mathers.
NOES.
Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.	Briscoe, Capt. R. G.	Davies, C. (Montgomery)
Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)	Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)	Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)	De Chair, S. S.
Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.	Bull, B. B.	Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Butler, R. A.	Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Apsley, Lord	Carver, Major W. H.	Duggan, H. J.
Assheton, R.	Cary, R. A.	Duncan, J. A. L.
Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)	Castlereagh, Viscount	Eastwood, J. F.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley	Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (Br. W.)	Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.	Channon, H.	Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)	Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)	Ellis, Sir G.
Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.	Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)	Elliston, Capt. G. S.
Barrie, Sir C. C.	Clarke, F. E.	Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Baxter, A. Beverley	Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.	Entwistle, Sir C. F.
Beauchamp, Sir B. C.	Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)	Errington, E.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)	Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)	Erskine-Hill, A. G.
Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N.	Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)	Fildes, Sir H.
Bird, Sir R. B.	Craven-Ellis, W.	Fox, Sir G. W. G.
Bossom, A. C.	Croft, Brig.-Gen. Sir H. Page	Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Bower, Comdr. R. T.	Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.	Furness, S. N.
Boyce, H. Leslie	Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Fyfe, D. P. M.
Bracken, B.	Cross, R. H.	Gluckstein, L. H.
Brass, Sir W.	Crowder, J. F. E.	Gower, Sir R. V.
Grelton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.	Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.	Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)
Gridley, Sir A. B.	Magnay, T.	Shepperson, Sir E. W.
Grimston, R. V.	Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.
Guy, J. C. M.	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.	Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.
Harbord, A.	Markham, S. F.	Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)
Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)	Mason, Lt.-Col. Hon. G. K. M.	Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.	Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.	Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-	Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Hepworth, J.	Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)	Spender-Clay, Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)	Morris-Jonas, Sir Henry	Spens, W. P.
Hoare, Rt. Hon. Sir S.	Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S (Cirencester)	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Holmes, J. S.	Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J	Munro, P.	Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)
Horsbrugh, Florence	Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.	Storey, S.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)	O'Connor, Sir Terence J.	Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.
Hudson, R. S. (Southport)	Orr-Ewing, I. L.	Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)
Hurd, Sir P. A.	Patrick, C. M.	Strickland, Captain W. F.
Jackson, Sir H.	Peake, O.	Sutcliffe, H.
Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)	Penny, Sir G.	Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)	Petherick, M.	Titchfield, Marquess of
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)	Pickthorn, K. W. M.	Tree, A. R. L. F.
Lamb, Sir J. Q.	Porritt, R. W.	Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.
Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.	Procter, Major H. A.	Turton, R. H.
Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)	Radford, E. A.	Wakefield, W. W.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)	Raikes, H. V. A. M.	Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan
Leech, Dr. J. W.	Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.	Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Lees-Jones, J.	Ramsbotham, H.	Warrender, Sir V.
Leighton, Major B. E. P.	Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)	Wayland, Sir W. A
Levy, T.	Reid, W. Allan (Derby)	Wedderburn, H. J. S.
Liddall, W. S.	Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)	Williams, C. (Torquay)
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J	Ropner, Colonel L.	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.	Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
M'Connell, Sir J.	Rowlands, G.	Withers, Sir J. J.
McCorquodale, M. S.	Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)	Wright, Squadron-Leader J. A. C.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)	Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)	Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)	Sandeman, Sir N. S.
McEwen, Capt. J. H. F.	Scott, Lord William	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
McKie, J. H.	Shakespeare, G. H.	Miss Cazalet and Mr. Keeling.

Question put, "That the proposed words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 167; Noes, 125.

Division No. 67.]	AYES.	[7.38 p.m.
Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.	Croom-Johnson, R. P.	Horsbrugh, Florence
Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)	Cross, R. H,	Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hack., N.)
Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)	Crowder, J. F. E.	Hudson, R. S. (Southport)
Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.	Davies, C. (Montgomery)	Hurd, Sir P. A.
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.	Davies, Major Sir G. F. (Yeovil)	Jackson, Sir H.
Apsley, Lord	De Chair, S. S.	Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Aske, Sir R. W.	Dorman-Smith, Major R. H.	Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)
Assheton, R.	Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)	Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)	Duggan, H. J.	Lamb, Sir J. Q.
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanlev	Duncan, J. A. L.	Lambert, Rt. Hon. G.
Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.	Dunglass, Lord	Law, Sir A. J. (High Peak)
Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)	Eastwood, J. F.	Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)
Barclay-Harvey, Sir C. M.	Edmondson, Major Sir J.	Leech, Dr. J. W.
Barrie, Sir C. C.	Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.	Lees-Jones, J.
Baxter, A. Beverley	Ellis, Sir G.	Levy, T.
Beauchamp, Sir B. C.	Elliston, Capt. G. S.	Liddall, W. S.
Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)	Emrys-Evans, P. V.	Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Bennett, Capt. Sir E. N,	Entwistle, Sir C. F.	Lovat-Fraser, J. A.
Bird, Sir R. B.	Errington, E.	MacAndrew, Colonel Sir C. G.
Bossom, A. C.	Erskine-Hill, A. G.	M'Conneil, Sir J.
Bower, Comdr. R. T.	Fildes, Sir H.	McCorquodale, M. S.
Boyce, H. Leslie	Fox, Sir G. W. G.	MacDonald, Rt. Hon. M. (Ross)
Bracken, B.	Furness, S. N.	Macdonald, Capt. P. (Isle of Wight)
Brass, Sir W.	Fyfe, D. P. M.	McKie, J. H.
Brocklebank, C. E. R.	Gluckstein, L. H.	Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.
Browne, A. C. (Belfast, W.)	Gower, Sir R. V.	Magnay, T.
Bull, B. B.	Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.	Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.
Carver, Major W. H.	Gridley, Sir A. B.	Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Cary, R. A.	Grimston, R. V.	Markham, S. F.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Guy, J. C. M.	Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (Br. W.)	Harbord, A.	Mellor, Sir J. S. P. (Tamworth)
Channon, H.	Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)	Mills, Sir F. (Leyton, E.)
Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)	Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.	Morris-Jones, Sir Henry
Clarke, F. E.	Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-	Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Colville, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. D. J.	Hepworth, J.	Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Cook, Sir T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)	Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)	Neven-Spence, Major B. H. H.
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)	Holmes, J. S.	O'Connor, Sir Terence J.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)	Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.	Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Craven-Ellis, W.	Hore-Bellsha, Rt. Hon. L.	Patrick, C. M.
Peaks, O.	Scott, Lord William	Titchfield, Marquess of
Penny, Sir G.	Shakespeare, G. H.	Tree, A. R. L. F.
Petherick, M.	Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)	Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.
Pickthorn, K. W. M.	Shepperson, Sir E. W.	Turton, R. H.
Porritt, R. W.	Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A.	Wakefield, W. W.
Procter, Major H. A.	Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.	Wallace, Capt. Rt. Hon. Euan
Radford, E. A.	Smith, Bracewell (Dulwich)	Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)
Raikes, H. V. A. M.	Somervell. Sir D. B. (Crewe)	Warrender, Sir V.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.	Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)	Wedderburn, H. J. S.
Ramsbotham, H.	Spens, W. P.	Williams, C. (Torquay)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)	Willoughby de Eresby, Lord
Reid, W, Allan (Derby)	Stanley, Rt. Hon. Oliver (W'm'l'd)	Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)	Storey, S.	Wright, Squadron-Leader J. A. C.
Ropner, Colonel L.	Stourton, Major Hon. J. J.	Young, A. S. L. (Partick)
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)	Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)
Rowlands, G.	Strickland, Captain W. F.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES —
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)	Sutcliffe, H.	Miss Cazaletland Mr. Keeling.
Sandeman, Sir N. S.	Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)
NOES.
Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir F. Dyke	Harris, Sir P. A.	Price, M. P.
Adams, D. M. (Poplar, S.)	Henderson, J. (Ardwick)	Pritt, D. N.
Adamson, W. M.	Henderson, T. (Tradeston)	Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Ammon, C. G.	Hicks, E. G.	Ridley, G.
Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)	Hills, A. (Pontefract)	Riley, B.
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.	Hollins, A.	Ritson, J.
Barr, J.	Jagger, J.	Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)
Batey, J.	Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)	Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Bevan, A.	John, W.	Rowson, G.
Broad, F. A.	Jones, A. C. (Shipley)	Salter, Dr. A.
Brooke, W.	Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)	Sanders, W. S.
Brown, C. (Mansfield)	Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)	Seely, Sir H. M.
Brown, Rt. Hon. J. (S. Ayrshire)	Kelly, W. T.	Sexton, T. M.
Buchanan, G.	Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.	Shinwell, E.
Burke, W. A.	Kirby, B. V.	Short, A.
Cape, T.	Lathan, G.	Silverman, S. S.
Chater, D.	Lawson, J. J.	Simpson, F. B.
Cluse, W. S.	Leach, W.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)
Cocks, F. S.	Lee, F.	Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)
Cove, W. G.	Leonard, W.	Smith, E. (Stoke)
Dalton, H.	Leslie, J. R.	Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)	Logan, D. G.	Sorensen, R. W.
Day, H.	Lunn, W.	Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)
Dobbie, W.	Macdonald, G. (Ince)	Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)	McEntee, V. La T.	Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Ede, J. C.	McGhee, H. G.	Thorne, W.
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)	MacLaren, A.	Thurtle, E.
Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)	Maclean, N.	Tinker, J. J.
Foot, D. M.	Mainwaring, W. H.	Walkden, A. G.
Frankel, D.	Marshall, F.	Watkins, F. C.
Gallacher, W.	Maxton, J.	Watson, W. McL.
Gardner, B. W.	Messer, F.	Welsh, J. C.
Garro Jones, G. M.	Milner, Major J.	Whiteley, W.
Gibbins, J._	Montague, F.	Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)
Gibson, R. (Greenock)	Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Hackney, S.)	Williams, T. (Don Valley)
Green, W. H. (Deptford)	Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)	Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.	Muff, G.	Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)
Grenfell, D. R.	Oliver, G. H.	Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)
Griffith, F. Kingsley (M'ddl'sbro, W.)	Owen, Major G.	Young, Sir R, (Newton)
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)	Parker, J.
Griffiths, J. (Llanelly)	Parkinson, J. A.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—
Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)	Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.	Mr. Groves and Mr. Mathers.
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)	Potts, J.

Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Mr. N. Maclean

On a point of Order. When I went into the Division Lobby just now I found that the Tellers had gone, and the Clerks at the Table refused to record my name as having voted, and I want to know what steps to take to have my vote recorded.

Mr. Speaker

If the Tellers for the "No" Lobby agree that the hon. Member voted, his vote will be recorded.

Resolved, That this House welcomes the measures taken by the Government to promote the physical welfare of children, recognises the beneficial results already achieved, as shown by the Annual Reports of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education, and hopes that, where necessary, the powers already possessed by local education authorities for the purpose will be more fully utilised.