HC Deb 22 July 1997 vol 298 cc750-2
12. Mr. Levitt

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what measures he proposes to promote good health in schools. [7954]

Mr. Dobson

Healthy schools will be a major target of our new health strategy for England. We will be working in partnership with the Department for Education and Employment and local authorities to promote the health and well-being of schoolchildren. A major objective will be to improve the nutritional value of school meals by introducing national nutritional standards.

Mr. Levitt

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. It will be applauded throughout the country. Will he ensure that there is maximum co-operation among education staff, health service staff and parents at a local level in the effective promotion of our young children's health?

Mr. Dobson

I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. I should like at this time to pay tribute to the efforts of Derbyshire county council, in the face of all sorts of abuse from the Conservatives, in maintaining a very high standard of school meal services and trying to keep the price down. We should not underestimate the value of a decent meal for many children from deprived homes. We have now reached the stage where children are not able to wait for the school dinner in the middle of the day; some of them have to be given breakfast because they are going so short of food. As was said in the debate on the introduction of local authority provision of school meals in 1906, a hungry child cannot learn.

Mr. Garnier

Can the Secretary of State tell me how much of the money that he mentioned in answer to his hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (Mr. Taylor) will be spent on promoting health in schools in Leicestershire?

Mr. Dobson

No. The hon. and learned Gentleman, who has been in the House more than 10 weeks, ought to have a rough idea of the fact that the amount of money that will be spent in schools in Leicestershire will, generally, be determined by Leicestershire county council, Leicester city council or—I believe—even Rutland council. We are determined that there will be national nutritional standards which all authorities will have to reach. One of the meanest, nastiest acts of the previous Government was to take away those national nutritional standards, undermining the health of tens of thousands of the poorest children in the land.

Mr. MacShane

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, because of the weather, one of the problems facing schools this summer is a plague of nits in young children's hair? It may not be a problem for him or me, since there is no hair to hide in. From talking to many head teachers, it is apparent that the problem has arisen because the school nurse became an almost extinct species under the previous Government. Will my right hon. Friend talk with our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment to see what can be done to ensure that school nurses are brought back and children's hair is properly examined? [Interruption.] It is a serious problem, despite the laughter of Opposition Members.

Mr. Dobson

I can confirm to my hon. Friend that our hon. Friend the Minister for Public Health is discussing with the chief medical officer and others what we do at a local level to promote public health and, in particular, give not just the necessary health advice but health help to schools so that the nit nurse reappears.

Mr. Nicholls

The right hon. Gentleman would doubtless agree that he hopes that the Government's commitment to ban tobacco advertising will play its part in promoting the health of young children. If that is so and if tobacco is as bad as we have heard today, should not the Government seize the moral high ground and ban it completely—or is his right hon. Friend the Chancellor simply too addicted to the revenue from it?

Mr. Dobson

The hon. Gentleman gets worse. I think that everybody in the country recognises that banning tobacco is not a practical proposition, because of all the consequences that would flow from it. Nevertheless, we have an obligation to try to stop the tobacco companies—which kill 120,000 of their customers every year—targeting their advertising on children so that they can recruit another 120,000 people to kill off a few years later.