§ 2. Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has had any recent proposals from education authorities for changes in the school meals service.
§ Mr. DobsonWill the Minister confirm that when the Conservative Government came to office in 1979 more than two thirds of schoolchildren took school meals, but that now, despite family impoverishment due to Government policies, the massive increase in the price of school meals and the abandonment of the service in some areas, under 50 per cent. of schoolchildren take school meals?
§ Mr. DunnI cannot confirm that. Local authorities have a right under the law to make changes in the provision of school meals, the only stipulation being that they must provide meals for children whose families receive supplementary benefit or family income supplement.
§ Mrs. RumboldDoes my hon. Friend agree that, quite apart from the fact that the education service was not set up to provide meals for children, the experiments carried out by some local authorities in putting the school meals service out to the private sector have been highly successful, particularly the scheme undertaken by my own borough of Merton?
§ Mr. DunnMy hon. Friend is entirely right. In the search for essential savings, privatisation is one option that can be considered. Nevertheless, I have an old-fashioned belief that responsibility for meals rests with parents.
§ Mrs. Renée ShortI am surprised that the Minister is unaware of what his Tory friends on Hertfordshire county council have been up to. Does he realise that in an attempt to save less than one third of 1 per cent. of its total budget that Tory county council proposed to cut out school meals altogether except for the very poorest children? Is he further aware that due to widespread protests throughout the county the council is now thinking again and trying to 793 save £1 million by asking dinner ladies to take a reduction in their low wages? Does he agree that that is a darned scandal?
§ Mrs. ShortThat is absolutely true, as the Secretary of State well knows.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Lady has finished her question, but I have not yet heard the Minister's answer.
§ Mr. DunnWhat a local education authority decides to do about school meals is not a matter for the Secretary of State, except with regard to the authority's obligations to families in receipt of benefit. In other respects the authority does not have to make proposals to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
§ Mr. AdleyWill my hon. Friend accept the description "extremely worrying" as applying to the evidence that the diet of many children taking school meals is leading to an unacceptably high incidence of heart disease due to the consumption of animal fats? In view of what the Department has done so far, will he now take an active rather than a passive role in advising parents of the dangers that their children face?
§ Mr. DunnWhen the Department introduced guidelines in the past, much food was wasted, which was clearly of nutritional benefit to no one. The Department of Health and Social Security has undertaken the school children's dietary survey and I understand that the results will be available later this year. We are aware of the problem to which my hon. Friend draws attention.
§ Mr. RadiceDoes the Minister believe that authorities such as Birmingham and Hertfordshire should help to finance their schools by cutting the pay of low-paid dinner ladies by between 5 and 25 per cent?
§ Mr. DunnIt remains my view and that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that authorities are entirely right to seek to provide non-teaching, non-educational services through private contractors if they believe that the resulting service will be better and more cost effective.