§ Order for Second Reading, read.
§ 2.7 pm
§ Mr. Tony Lloyd (Stretford)I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The spirit of cordiality that has broken out in the House will, I am certain, be continued when the Minister speaks to my Bill. We have time for only a brief debate, and I wish to place on record my thanks to a number of people and organisations who have assisted me in the preparation of the Bill. The London Food Commission is primary among them, but I pay tribute also to the Coronary Prevention Group and the National Union of Public Employees, the chairman of whose parliamentary group, my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) is here.
The Bill has two objects. The first is to recognise that school meals still play a very important part in the food and nutritional intake of a significant number of young people. We need to make sure that nutritional standards are maintained, and that food is of high quality. The second is to recognise that since 1980, when nutritional standards were abolished, there has been a change of attitude towards food, mirrored in reports by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy, and by the National Advisory Committee on Nutrition Education showing that there is a clear link between food and health and a clear connection between food and long-term health. This must help us to tackle problems such as coronaries among people in later life. The time to begin the process of adequate food education is not when people are under the threat of this medical state, but when they are still at school.
This change since 1980 justifies the House looking again at nutritional standards. I am sure that the Minister will point out many examples of local education authorities that have progressive policies on diets at schools. For the benefit of the House, I shall quote a couple of examples which apply across the political spectrum. I pay a sincere tribute to Surrey education authority, which is Conservative controlled. It introduced a traffic light system for food served in school meals cafeterias and has also given special promotion to healthy types of food, such as jacket potatoes to replace chips. That has had a great impact and the uptake of jacket potatoes has increased by 1,100 per cent. while there has been a 40 per cent. decrease in the consumption of chips.
North Yorkshire is another example of a progressive local authority which has recognised the need for dietary requirements and has tried to establish something that is acceptable and educative. What is more, it is successful in encouraging young people to use the school meals service. Redbridge in the Greater London area found when it introduced a healthier and more balanced diet to the menu that it led to no great cost increase but to a 10 per cent. increase in the number of pupils who chose to take school meals.
There are good examples of local authorities doing what they can. Equally, many local authorities are not doing that. For the first time in recent years, we would have by way of this Bill a minimum standard to which all local authorities would have to conform. In no sense 1225 would it penalise the good local authorities that I have mentioned, but it would set a standard for authorities that do not conform to good practice.
This morning I spoke to a pupil of one of the schools in Manchester where the authority is Labour controlled. She has just organised a petition signed by her colleagues at the school and by the teaching staff. It complains about the monotonous diet and the chips-with-everything school meals provided at Poundswick high school. I hope that the Bill will have an impact on Manchester.
While there are good examples of school meals services, it is important for us to recognise that there are bad examples and that we should legislate for the recalcitrants as well as for authorities that follow good practice. School meals are an important source of food for our young people. It is not a matter of talking about a trivial item that is slipped on to the agenda. Nationally, about 17 per cent. of all pupils are in receipt of free school meals. In Manchester the figure is 26 per cent. That is a high percentage and shows that one in four pupils in that city now receives free school meals.
It is generally recognised that there is an underestimate of the number of children entitled to free school meals. Manchester is an increasingly poor city and the school meal is a necessary and important part of the diet. The evidence about the need for adequate standards is overwhelming. In a study carried out in 1979,
it was found that school dinners were eaten by 95 per cent. of the low income children attending school and, amongst these children, uptake of free school meals was very high. The school lunch provided on average, 36 per cent. of the energy, 28 per cent. of the protein, 38 per cent. of the calcium and 39 per cent. of the iron in their diets. In some instances, the meal contributed as much as 51 per cent. of the energy, 49 per cent. of the protein,".We are talking about very poor children, and in the days when we had nutritional standards in some cases school meals provided a high proportion of the nutrients received by those young people. A recent DHSS survey was adamant in its conclusion that the school meal was an important part of the diet of older children. In a sense, the DHSS supports the existence of school meals and it is important to underscore that fact. In some ways the report was horrific in what it said about the diet of schoolchildren, and not necessarily about those who take school meals but about those who have ceased to take them in the general downturn in the taking of school meals.The DHSS report says that free school meals are important in supplying the nutritional needs of children. It says:
They were found to be partly responsible for keeping the energy intakes of older school children up to the levels of the rest of the children who ate at home or took a packed lunch.What is surprising and important is that that survey, which looked at the packed lunches taken by children to school in East Sussex, found that only 42 per cent. of the children were consistently given a suitable meal by nutritional standards. Nearly 50 per cent. of them had no fruit or vegetables in their lunch, and in 25 per cent. of those lunches the only protein or calcium that they received was in the bread of the sandwiches. Even packed lunches under the control of parents do not conform on many occasions to acceptable nutritional standards. I accept that there is no way that we shall dragoon young people into the cafeterias or kitchens. We cannot say that school meals will be the only source of nutrients on offer. That is not the case. By establishing minimal nutritional standards, 1226 and by making sure that all school meals conform to those standards, we can play an important part not just in diet but in the long-term health education of our pupils.I shall conclude because of the shortage of time. It is important for the Minister to place her views on the record. There has been a revolution in Britain in attitudes towards food and the understanding of the links between food and health. That may well have percolated clown to the readers of the colour supplements in the Sunday newspapers, but it is a right of each and every one of my constituents — I represent a poor part of Britain — in particular, a right of the next generation, that health education and healthy attitudes to food should be available to them as well as to those who are more affluent. Cost should not be a bar. We can make a considerable impact by looking at the school meals service and by accepting that these minimal nutritional standards, which would be subject to the Secretary of State's guidance and discretion, should once again be established to provide for my constituents as well as those of the rest of the country.
§ The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold)I welcome the opportunity to discuss this important topic, which has been raised by the Bill of the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd). The hon. Gentleman presents us with an opportunity to make a few observations about the kind of philosophy that he has put forward about minimal nutritional standards. I should like to counter with some of the views which the Government have on his proposals.
Both you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the hon. Member for Stretford are gallant gentlemen. I imagine that you would not observe the sad fact that I am getting old. The reason why I draw the attention of the House to that sad matter is that my own experience as a younger woman and, indeed, as an adolescent, confirms a certain amount of what the hon. Gentleman said about the nutritional importance of school meals.
As a girl, I recall that the compulsory school meal that many of us had to eat comprised two parts. One was the statutory meat and two veg — we called it something else, but I am sure that that was what it was. A lot of us, I fear, did not participate in that part of the meal. The second part of the meal consisted of suet pudding or treacle pudding. I was a greedy little girl — I dare say that some hon. Members were greedy, and I dare say that they, too, indulged not in one helping of treacle pudding but two. The net result of this sad tale was that by the age of 14 years I was, to say the least, a portly child. That was a great disability to me, and it was as a direct result of unhealthy eating.
The physical exercise that was available to me was twofold. I was placed by my unkind hockey team in the goal because they regarded me as large enough to fill up the hole, and was entered for swimming by the people who wished to win the swimming events, because, curiously enough, one of large size could get through the water quite quickly. That was something that I managed to prove to myself.
I made a speech to this effect at an education conference some years ago when I first became involved in education. The conference discussed the importance of school meals and their place in terms of nutritional value and the responsibilities of the education service. We concluded that, apart from the rather dubious anecdotal evidence 1227 given by many of the speakers, such as me, there was little proof to hand to support the view that the practice of subsidising school meals should continue.
By the time the House was considering the 1980 education legislation and the continuation of subsidies for school meals, many people involved in local education authorities, such as me, were confronted with schools pressing to be allowed to move to a cafeteria system of providing school meals. The reason given was that young people benefit from being able to go into a cafeteria and choose nutritional food that they want to eat rather than leave food that they do not want to eat—thus providing considerable help for the farmers but not much for the children's nutrition. It is true, as the hon. Member for Stretford has pointed out, that children are tempted by chips and that many will continue to each chips and foods that are far too sweet. Nevertheless, with the improved health education evidence given to schools by some of the better local education authorities, such as North Yorkshire and Surrey, young people are being directed towards a better and healthier diet.
The comprehensive survey conducted in 1983 by the Department of Health and Social Security has been commented on by the public. The main evidence from the report was that there was no significant difference in nutrient intakes between children from differing socio-economic groupings. It did not matter where the children came from. On average, the children's nutrient intakes were above the DHSS recommenations. The evidence showed that children were taller and heavier than expected and that school meals of all kinds were providing adequate nutrients. Older children who are not out of school, especially girls, seemed to choose poorer meals. Much of the evidence in the report, which was the only substantive report that we received, pointed not so much to the need for school meals to be subsidised as to the importance of health education about the contents of meals available to children everywhere.
The hon. Member for Stretford said that about 1.4 million children receive free school meals. It is to the needs of those children that we carefully address our attention and that of authorities which follow different policies. Those authorities that have to provide meals for young people should be aware that a sandwich of wholemeal bread with a sensible filling is as nutritious as many a meal that a young person might be found eating out of school. It is important that all school meals should provide good nutrients and we have clear evidence that this is so.
It is certainly true that the proposal for a better cash benefit will help low income working families to fulfil their prime responsibility to give their children a proper diet. In that context it is important to remember that the prime responsibility for ensuring adequate child nutrition rests with the parents as well as with the schools.
School meals can play only a secondary role since they are provided only five days a week. There is no provision for the weekends and holidays, but better financial support for parents, especially as it would go directly to the mothers, would certainly help them to fulfil those responsibilities. It is for those reasons that the Government, for the time being, are interested, but somewhat doubtful, about the entire value of this extremely interesting Bill.
§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish)Like the Minister I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) has had the opportunity to raise this issue today. I regret that it looks as though the Government are reluctant to allow the Bill to go into Committee. We could usefully have spent a little time in Committee further exploring the issues that my hon. Friend raised.
It would certainly be worthwhile having the Bill on the statute book. I readily accept that, over recent years, there have been considerable improvements in school meals in some areas, but that does not go back to the Education Act 1980. Most of the efforts that were being made by enlightened authorities to improve the nutritional standard and the choice for pupils go back well before the 1980 Act. The 1980 Act caused more problems than it solved. I very much regret the way in which some authorities have pushed up the charges and reached a position where, in many cases, few pupils pay for meals and the only ones who take meals are those who get them free and where almost all of those pupils who would have to pay for them have switched to sandwiches. Although I agree that sandwiches may sometimes have a high nutritional value, they are not satisfactory in very cold weather when hot food is a major advantage to children.
When I visit schools I am also worried to see that children have sandwiches made up of white bread, often quite thickly spread with butter and where the main filling ingredient is often crisps. Those are supplemented by sweet biscuits, to be washed down by a can of coca cola or some other fairly over-sweetened liquid. That is not the sort of thing that we should encourage children to have at midday.
On the one hand, there have been increased charges and some children have been pushed into having sandwiches that are unattractive nutritionally, and on the other hand one or two authorities, such as Dorset and Buckingham, have completely abolished their school meals service. That has caused great hardship in those areas and is an example of the worst things that we predicted would happen when the 1980 Act came into effect.
Other authorities have moved towards the continental day. Although some of the authorities that are considering the continental day are offering pupils a meal at the end of it, the take-up in those cases seems to be small. I do not welcome that development. I am also worried that in some places the cafeteria system encourages pupils to select chips and perhaps to wash them down with currant sauce. There are also examples of the low nutritional standards of snacks.
What is most encouraging is the way in which some authorities have tried to combine teaching in schools with the provision of the school meal service, and where health education has become a substantial part of the curriculum and discussion of healthy eating within the curriculum is linked to the opportunities for healthy food within the school meals service.
In Salford I saw impressive efforts in some schools to encourage pupils to think carefully about their diet and to make choices at lunchtime that fulfilled that sensible eating. In Tameside, one of the areas that I partly represent, the same thing has been developed to some extent within the schools meals service. We need to have 1229 far more discussion about the nutritional requirements of school meals, and this Bill would be a useful opportunity to fulfil that.
§ Mr. Steve Norris (Oxford, East)I regret that time will not permit me to devote to this important measure the attention that it undoubtedly merits. Hon. Members on both sides will agree that it raises important questions. However, the conclusions——.
§ It being half past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed on Friday 27 February.