School Meals and Milk

HC Deb 10 June 1971 vol 818 cc349-50W

9. Mr. Carter

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she has now obtained figures detailing numbers of children eating school meals since the increase in their cost.

10. Mr. William Hamilton

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what statistics are now available indicating the reduction in the number of school meals taken consequent on the recent price increases.

Mrs. Thatcher

Insufficient returns from local education authorities have yet been received to make any general assessment. I shall make the information available when all the returns have been received and studied.

17. Mr. Curran

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what she estimates would be the cost of supplying free milk and free meals in all State schools in England and Wales.

Mrs. Thatcher

About £275 million a year.

36. Mr. Skinner

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many women have been removed from school meals employment in the county of Derbyshire as a result of the increase in school meals charges; and what are the numbers employed at the present date compared to a year previously.

Mrs. Thatcher

Information of this kind is not collected by my Department. The hon. Member may wish to consult Derbyshire local education authority in the matter.

Mr. Judd

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether, in deciding her policy in the light of the analysis being undertaken by her Department of the social causes and consequencies of schoolchildren stopping taking school meals, she will take into account the fact that on 13th May the Portsmouth Education Department announced that 1,000 schoolchildren had stopped taking meals in its area.

Mrs. Thatcher

My Department is in process of collecting from all local education authorities returns of school meals take-up based on a census carried out last month at my request. The returns will provide no more than the usual statistical information on this subject, and my Department is not undertaking any analysis of the kind the hon. Member appears to have in mind.