Policy Issues
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There is a
nutritional problem in our schools and the Government has
made raising the standard and quality of school meals a top
priority. Earlier this year, the Government earmarked £220
million in new funding grants to go directly to schools and
LEAs to help them transform school meals. This will go
towards the building of new kitchens to encourage the
preparation of healthy, fresh food, and provide more support
and training for dinner ladies. By banning junk food in
schools by September 2006, we are now going one step further
by making sure that unhealthy food is not available in
schools. In addition, cookery
lessons in secondary schools will now be part of a review of
technology classes for 11 to 14 year olds - with pupils to
be given lessons in food preparation, diet, food safety and
hygiene.
Whilst very significant progress
has therefore been made in tackling this issue, there is
still more that can be done. There is a need to take action on a range of factors which lead to poor
childhood diets. These include marketing to children of
foods containing high levels of fat, sugar and salt, and
insufficient promotion to children of healthy foods. I
support the provisions under the Children's Food Bill,
introduced in the last Parliament and supported by 248 MPs
and 137 national organisations, which seeks a range of
statutory measures to improve children's diets and future
health.
I am confident that the
implementation of the measures the Government has undertaken
will benefit thousands of children in Tooting and across the
whole country, ensuring that they have access to decent
school meals. It is vitally important that our children are
better educated at an early age on the importance of a
healthy diet, in order to improve their current and future
health.
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