HC Deb 01 April 1971 vol 814 cc1655-6
8. Miss Lestor

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will institute an inquiry into the nutritional and dietary circumstances of schoolchildren.

Mrs. Thatcher

The Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy, through its Panel on the Nutrition of School Children, keeps this matter under review.

Miss Lestor

Is the right hon. Lady not aware that there is great concern on this side of the House and among many of her hon. Friends, as well as among doctors outside the House, at the complete rejection by her hon. Friend of the Queen Elizabeth College survey on nutrition among schoolchildren? Is it not time the Government themselves undertook a survey to examine the effects of the increases in school meal charges and the withdrawal of school milk?

Mrs. Thatcher

It would help to adjudge that survey if it were published. It has never been published.

Miss Lestor

That is not the point. The point is that there was an interim report which was published and available. It was that which was rejected by her hon. Friend on the Prayer on school meals and milk.

Mrs. Thatcher

I fail to see why a survey which has been completed should not be published if I am asked to adjudge upon it.

Mr. Lane

Is it not a fact that during the last six years, in spite of increases in school meal charges, an appreciably higher proportion of children are receiving school meals than was the case in 1964?

Mrs. Thatcher

Certainly more are receiving school meals free. I am glad to announce that all children in families which are in receipt of family incomes supplement will be entitled to free school meals without separate assessment. Amending legislation will be laid before Parliament in due course.

Mr. Frank Allaun

Does the right hon. Lady accept that many children are going to school without having had anything to eat since five o'clock the previous evening? If the number of children receiving school dinners were to go down by, let us say, half a million, would she reconsider the question of charges and also the withdrawal of free school milk?

Mrs. Thatcher

I am satisfied that the arrangements in respect of free school meals are operating as well as we can possibly get them to operate, and there will be another campaign to this end. All those who receive supplementary benefits are automatically entitled to free school meals and those in receipt of family incomes supplement will be automatically entitled to them. The hon. Gentleman's opening remark is a matter for the welfare services rather than for the school meals service.

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