SCHOOL MILK (Hansard, 17 February 1971)

§ Mr. James Hamilton (Bothwell)
When the Chancellor made his statement on 27th October last and announced to the House that there would be a cessation of school milk to children at primary schools from the age of 7 there was a great deal of consternation on this side of the House. Arising from that, many of us have been addressing very many public meetings. At every public meeting without exception that I have addressed the question of school milk has been posed, because there is great anxiety about the reduction in the nutritional condition of the children who lose this liquid in the schools. At my last meeting, at Holytown in my constituency, one of the principals of one of the higher grade schools put a question to be about it, and coming as it did from such a responsible person it concerned me very much.
Consequently, I put down a Question to the Secretary of State for Scotland which was answered on 3rd February. It asked what action, if any, had been taken by the Minister to seek medical advice before he took this decisive step. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office, replied for the Secretary of State and said that no medical advice had been sought. In fairness to him I should add that he did say that if medical advice was required it was, of course, available to him.
The following day, 4th February, I had a Question along the same lines to the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Education and Science. In putting my supplementary question I reminded her that the previous Government, my 2016 own Government, had ceased to give free milk to children attending secondary schools and that, much as I felt that that was a retrograde step, I was assured, and the House was assured, that medical advice had been sought before that action was taken.
In conversation with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short), he told me last night that the reply he had received was that if he ceased to give milk to children under 10 it could be a disservice to the health of those children. In fairness to the Labour Government I emphasise that they at least took some action, but the present Administration have taken no action at all.
Consequently, I feel, and many medical experts feel, that this step will be detrimental to the health of the children attending primary schools. The harm to the health of the children by the decision to stop school milk to the over 7s. is incalculable. The Government's decision is particularly ironic in that it follows a survey by the Queen Elizabeth College School and Nutrition Unit which revealed that only 32 per cent. of the 4,000 children studied could be regarded as having a satisfactory diet.
A total of 57 per cent. were regarded as unsatisfactory and eleven per cent. as poor. The third of a pint of milk allocated to primary children is a valuable source of calcium. Pupils up to the age of 12 with medical requirements and pupils in special schools will continue to receive milk, so it is difficult to see the logic of an assumption that milk is of benefit to the physical well-being of the mentally deficient but not that of other children.
The estimated saving in a full year is about £9 million. Yesterday morning, I spoke by telephone to Dr. McQueen, the adviser for the Scottish Milk Marketing Board, which did a survey in Renfrewshire in 1968 after my Government stopped milk in secondary schools. They found that 14 per cent. of secondary pupils and 9 per cent. of senior secondary pupils ate nothing before going to school, and 13 per cent. of secondary pupils and 13 per cent. of senior secondary pupils drank nothing before going to school. Most of these were in the lower income groups. 2017 One person who has investigated individuals is Dr. George Lynch, of Queen Elizabeth College, London University. His report, presented in September, 1970, shortly before the Government's White Paper, showed that the withdrawal of milk from the primary school children surveyed would increase the percentage of those deficient in calcium to 34 per cent., assuming no compensatory change in food habits. This question is crucial. One considers what happened when we stopped milk to secondary schools. In 1968–69, the period during which that withdrawal came into effect, the sale of liquid milk declined by 18 million gallons. The Chairman of the Milk Marketing Board, Sir Richard Trehane, attributed this decline to a rise in the price of welfare milk and to the withdrawal of free milk in secondary schools.
When I put the question to the Secretary of State for Education and Science, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon,-Tyne, Central (Mr. Edward Short), the previous Secretary of State, asked in a supplementary question whether she was contemplating legislation to permit the sale of milk in schools, since we had been informed that this was possibly the Government's intention. The right hon. Lady replied that they were contemplating such legislation. I have had talks with the E.I.S.—not on an official basis but with many of its members—and they make it indelibly clear to me that they are not prepared to cooperate in this because it will be an added imposition on the work of teachers, and we all know that there is great difficulty in getting the required number of teachers, particularly in the secondary schools.
I am not trying to fly the flag of my party when it was in government, because I was bitterly opposed to the action which it took, but in fairness to the Labour Government I should say that I questioned my children after the decision had been taken and every one of them conceded that they did not bother much with milk at secondary school. I do not put that forward as a valid argument because many of the poorer families do not have the necessary milk supplied to them in their homes and this decision will have an adverse effect on the lower income groups. But when we made inquiries about primary school children it 2018 was related to us that, in 1969–70, 91 per cent. of the primary school children were taking school milk and, since the introduction of the scheme in 1946 arising from the Education Act, 1944, a steady 90 per cent. of children were taking school milk. We must give careful consideration to this fact if we have any thought for our citizens of tomorrow.
It has been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that when this measure is introduced in the summer this year children who have reached the age of seven will continue to get free milk until the summer vacation. Some of the children will attain the age of seven during the summer period and after the summer vacation some children in the same class could be entitled to free milk but other children, because they are over the age of seven, would not. How will we tell the latter children that they are not entitled to free milk?
I ask the Minister to give very careful thought to this matter. There are many anomalies in this Government decision. It was a niggardly decision. The Government are playing with the health of the children. I want to thank the hon. Gentleman for being present, because I have kept him out of his bed and I have kept you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, out of your bed. But I do not make any apology for raising this subject. I feel strongly about it, and so do my hon. Friends. I ask the Under-Secretary of State to request the Secretary of State to retrace his steps and reverse this niggardly decision which will be detrimental to the well-being of our children.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office (Mr. Edward Taylor)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. James Hamilton) for the way in which he has spoken on this subject. While some matters are raised in what I might call a political or controversial way, the hon. Gentleman has the merit of absolute consistency because he complained about the decision of the previous Government and he is now complaining about our decision.
Before I deal with the basis of the case, I should like to refer to two points which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. He 2019 referred first to the survey which is being conducted by Dr. Lynch, of the Social Nutrition Research Unit at Queen Elizabeth College. This report has still to be published. Dr. Lynch has still not published details of his research, and it cannot be commented on objectively until we have that report.
The hon. Gentleman then asked whether health departments have ever been advised that school milk must now be stopped for the under 10s. The departments seek advice from the Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy. That body has never said to us or to any previous Government that milk is essential for children over seven or between seven and 10.
The basis of the hon. Gentleman's comments was to criticise the Government on two points: firstly, that we have decided to discontinue the indiscriminate supply of free milk to all primary pupils over the age of seven and, secondly, that before reaching this decision we did not consult the British Medical Association.
To take the second point first, so far as I am aware, it has never been the practice to consult the British Medical Association on matters of this kind. The normal practice has been, where this is necessary and appropriate, to consult the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy, a United Kingdom body of recognised experts chaired by the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health and Social Security and the Department of Education and Science. On this occasion, however, no such formal consultation seemed necessary. We are not proposing to withdraw milk from all pupils over a given age—as the previous Government decided to withdraw it from all secondary pupils. We have made it clear that we intend that any primary school pupil of any age who requires milk on medical grounds will continue to get it free. Of course, all pupils in special schools, of any age, will continue to get it. Since the decision in regard to any particular child is to be left to the school medical officer, formal consultations were not necessary. It is, I think, significant, despite what has been said, that we have had no representations against our decision from any medical body. I appreciate, of course, that we have had representations, but, to my 2020 knowledge, no medical body has made representations to us on this decision.
I turn now to the main issue. All of us recognise that school milk, at first at a nominal charge and since the war free of charge, has in the past helped to ensure the health of our pupils. But times change. We are not living in the 1930s or 1940s, and one-third of a pint of milk on 200 days in the year is no longer, in my view and that of my advisers, essential to ensure that our children are adequately nourished. It is perhaps desirable that the youngest pupils—up to the age of seven—should continue to get it, and there will be some older primary pupils who need it. It will still be provided for them. But we do not think that every other child needs this supplement to the diet provided at home and to the nourishing meals which are provided at school. In our view, this is a saving in public expenditure which can and should be made without any adverse effect on the health of our pupils.
In view of what the hon. Gentleman and others have said in this House, it should be emphasised that we shall keep the situation under review. We are setting up an adequate and effective monitoring system to check the effect of the change. This will be over and above the constant flow of information about the heights, weights and physical conditions of the many thousands of children examined each year by the school health service. That mass of information confirms what every hon. Member knows from his own observation—that the general state of our children's health is extremely high, and incidentally has improved greatly since the war without any increase in the daily supply of milk which a pupil is entitled to receive at school, so that attempts to argue for a simple cause and effect relationship are quite untenable.
I repeat that on this occasion we certainly shall maintain a monitoring system to check the effect of the change. All the best available advice which we have had is that no adverse effects should follow to our school children, particularly in view of the safeguard which we have put in about children who are indicated as requiring school milk. But, over and above that, we certainly shall be assessing the effects of the withdrawal. 2021 I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, with his special interest in the matter, will keep in touch with us to hear how the monitoring system is working.
There is another point which I should make, because the hon. Gentleman raised it in his speech. One consequence of the action taken by the former Government in 1968—I am sure that it was unintentional—was that education authorities, in being relieved of the duty to provide milk for secondary pupils, were also deprived of the power to provide milk for them at all, free or on any form of payment. We intend to put this right in the legislation which we shall be introducing to give effect to our decision. In future education authorities in Scotland, and in England and Wales, will be empowered to provide milk, on payment, to any of their pupils. It will, of course, be entirely for them to decide if and how to make such provision—in tuck shops, through vending machines, or in any other way.
I am sure that local authorities will be conscious of the point made by the hon. Gentleman about the supply of teachers and the responsibilties which they have. This should give children not entitled to free milk, but whose parents feel that they should drink milk during the day, an opportunity to do so. Therefore, we are providing this new power to local authorities to sell milk, if they wish, so that children will have the opportunity to buy milk at school, if they or their parents so wish.
I and, indeed, all my colleagues, and the Secretary of State, who will take a keen interest in all that the hon. Gentleman has said, are conscious of his sincere feelings in the matter. However, I should emphasise that we are on this occasion making provision for children 2022 who do need milk. This undertaking will be honoured.

Mr. Ronald King Murray (Edinburgh), Leith)
Is it not statistically correct that, by and large, children in Scotland are smaller and less heavy than their counterparts in England and Wales? In these circumstances, does the Minister consider that this factor should be taken into account when it is proposed to discontinue the general supply of milk to Scottish children?

Mr. Taylor
I have not got actual statistics on this matter. I understand that this was the position and that a previous survey indicated something along those lines. On the other hand, it is fair to point out that the provisions which we have had in the past have applied equally to Scotland, England and Wales. We are conscious of the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman. But even if we take this into account—of course, things can change rapidly—such matters are often out of date before we get the information.
While some hon. Gentlemen opposite—I know the feelings of the hon. Member for Bothwell on this matter—feel that this was a wrong decision, I should emphasise that we are providing reasonable safeguards.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way that he made his remarks. Everyone in the House is aware that on the occasions when he speaks on matters of this kind, he speaks with knowledge and sincerity. Certainly on an Adjournment debate at this time in the morning the hon. Gentleman made an agreeable speech.