Order for Second Reading read.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill seeks to provide a legal framework for the regulation of children's food. It covers the marketing of food and the provision of food in schools. It takes account of the skills that children need in order to make good decisions about diet and health, and requests the Government to accept a new duty to promote healthy food to children.

I cannot claim to be the inventor of the Children's Food Bill. There has been a long campaign, organised by Sustain, on behalf of more than 150 organisations. They care about children, food, children's health and our common future. I welcome the support of Unison, the GMB, the National Union of Teachers and the Communication Workers Union, and that of the Co-operative Group, the British Medical Association and the British Heart Foundation in particular.

It is always very impressive when a list of supporters of that kind is read out, but what assessment has the hon. Lady made of the extent of support from her parliamentary colleagues—of the 350 or so Labour Members, either those who are present now or those who, in the event of a Division, may vote for the Bill?

More than 250 Members from all parties in the House have signed an early-day motion that I tabled on the subject. I think that that indicates the level of support for the Bill.

The Bill was first tabled in 2004 by Debra Shipley, the former Labour Member for Stourbridge. Jamie Oliver's "Feed me better" campaign caught the public mood in the spring, and raised awareness of the quality of school meals. I feel that I am carrying a torch that others have lit. Returning to the question asked by Mr. Forth, I thank the hon. Members for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan) for their support and sponsorship, and for making this a cross-party Bill.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friends and to Members in all parts of the House who have been so generous in sharing with me their wisdom and experience in supporting this Bill's passage.

Children and food—those are two very emotive words. What should we feed our children and what are we feeding our children? Those are two questions with very different answers. Obesity is a growing problem in the UK, especially among children. Government figures for 2002 show that 30 per cent. of children aged two to 15 are obese or overweight.

Does my hon. Friend agree that as part of the wider debate and in order to influence behaviour, we need to examine how children themselves view food and their relationship with it? A recent study in south Wales shows not only a rise in child obesity but a significant change in the rate of obesity in girls, compared with boys.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the serious issue of the difference in obesity levels among boys and girls. The level is considerably higher among girls and there are many possible reasons on which we could speculate, such as girls' attitudes to sport—particularly team sport—and their body image and self-awareness. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are affecting young women's growth and fertility, and their reproductive ability in later life. I agree that this issue needs to be looked at.

If childhood obesity continues at its current rate, more than half of children will be overweight or obese by 2020. The links between poor diet and chronic disease are well known. If we do not deal with this problem, for the first time ever, mothers of my generation may have a longer life expectancy than their children. So we need to take action.

The Children's Food Bill has six clauses and five main provisions, and I am absolutely delighted that the Government have agreed to two parts of it. This is truly wonderful news and a great victory for the Bill. Tuesday's schools white paper promised to introduce minimum nutritional standards for all school meals and a ban on junk food in school vending machines. That is a real victory for the organisations, parents, teachers, school dinner ladies, celebrity chefs and parliamentarians who have campaigned long and hard on this issue.

Does my hon. Friend accept that it was very important that the white paper gave that commitment, because it is clear that the educational achievement of children—particularly those from disadvantaged homes—is adversely affected by poor nutrition? The hot meals provided at school may be their only hot meal until they get home in the evening.

That is indeed an important issue. Since working on the Bill, I have heard about the various difficulties that disadvantaged children face throughout the country. Sadly, we know that for many such children, the school meal is the only hot meal that they will get all day. A child's ability to learn will not be helped by consuming crisps and fizzy drinks, rather than something nourishing and sustaining. I welcome the fact that the new schools being built will have proper kitchens; staff should not simply be reheating food that has been cooked elsewhere.

Is my hon. Friend aware that there were national nutritional standards until 1980, when I lobbied this House against the then Conservative Government's removing them? At that time, substantial and nutritional meals were provided. In fact, school meals were first introduced after the Boer war, because when our soldiers came back they were regarded as rather puny. So this issue has been known about for a long time, and we are in part reverting to previous practice—with, hopefully, future improvements.

I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting contribution. A class divide still exists between the physical development of children from poorer backgrounds and those from better-off backgrounds. In many ways, we are turning the clock back to provisions that were in place in the 1970s and 1980s, but which have now disappeared.

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Hull city council, which has introduced free, healthy school meals in all its primary schools? One school in particular has seen a take-up of 98 per cent. Already, teachers are commenting on the educational achievements that have followed from the good nutrition of those children. Breakfasts and after-school refreshments are available as well as the healthy school meal lunches.

I thank my hon. Friend for her Intervention. Her example of what Hull city council is doing is one of the most radical and exciting examples of a local authority using its powers to address chronic ill health in its community. It is crucial for us to carry on those initiatives because where everyone has a free school meal, it takes the stigma out of having school dinners. Everyone eats together and children also learn about how to talk to each other across a school dinner table, which is very important.

I welcome the principles behind the Bill. Picking up on the previous Intervention, does the hon. Lady recognise that not only local authorities, but individual schools can introduce healthy school meals. St. Birinus school in Didcot has a healthy school meals menu that details all the benefits. Does the hon. Lady also agree that healthy food, including food bought from local producers, need not be any more expensive than food purchased through a contract with a central catering company? Does she accept that we in south Oxfordshire and the vale are disappointed that, under the healthy schools initiative, the Government have given a school such as St. Birinus, which has achieved so much, only £1.50 a week in additional funding to help with its healthy school meals?

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman raises the issue of local and sustainable produce. Many schools across Yorkshire and in my Wakefield Constituency are trying to emulate that example. In one school, the head chef makes such delicious meals that they are outsourcing her and using the school hall for weddings, baptisms, christenings and so forth. That school, in the Morley and Rothwell constituency, made £40,000 and bought a school minibus, largely on the basis of the head chef's efforts and hard work. It is a tremendous achievement.

We should be saying that it is not just a matter of school dinners; we should be producing food that we all want to eat. When we go into the Members' Tea Room, we are not offered only burgers, chips and pizza—[Interruption.] Okay, there is the all-day breakfast, in which some of us were indulging only this morning. However, what is good enough for us should be good enough for our children.

I shared breakfast with my hon. Friend this morning, but I shall not tell the House what she had to eat—or what I had to eat, for that matter.

It is not just a question of whether people are rich or poor, but a question of knowledge. When one knows how to cook, one can provide good meals cheaply. I recently visited Bell Lane school in my Constituency and talked to the kids about what they ate, and I was impressed by the fact that many children from minority ethnic backgrounds still ate very healthily, because of the knowledge of their families, inherited through the generations and brought from overseas. Part of the problem is that much of that knowledge among the traditional English community has been lost. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to educate parents as well as improve schools?

Absolutely. I am aware of an agricultural tradition among minority communities—whether they be Irish, Bangladeshi or Pakistani—that often carries on. I am a great fan of the allotment tradition. It helps to teach children how to cook and grow their own food.

On that particular point, Lowther primary school in Barnes in my Constituency decided that it would not introduce healthy eating only for children, so it combined with Roehampton university and the primary care trust to take healthy eating out into the community. Thus whole families learn how to grow food—an allotment has been placed on the school site—and the message is carried through every day and week of the child's life. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a constructive way in which to deal with these issues?

I agree with the hon. Lady and I know of schools in my Constituency where part of the school playing field has been given up as an allotment and the children go out every day to plant their seeds, water their vegetables, watch things grow and learn about the seasons. When they take those vegetables home, it is imperative that they are cooked with the care and reverence that the children showed in bringing them forth from the soil.

A school in Yorkshire started a breakfast club for pupils who were turning up late because they had paper rounds. One of the teachers commented:

"Offering toast and a warm drink instead of letting pupils consume crisps and fizzy drinks significantly reduced their aggression levels."

It is not hard to work out which is best when it comes to toast versus crisps or cola versus milky tea.

At schools in Wakefield, we are enjoying better school dinners, thanks to the Government's investment this spring, but the latest announcement is better news. The Bill has three further parts—a ban on junk food marketing aimed at children, school lessons on cooking and growing food for children and a new duty on the Government to promote sustainable and healthy eating to children.

The hon. Lady said that it was obvious that a cup of warm, milky tea was preferable to a glass of cola, but did she see the research from the Food Standards Agency that suggested that a glass of cola was far healthier than a milkshake? There is a lack of consensus about what is actually healthy.

I was not talking about milkshakes, but the food industry makes the argument that the FSA profiles put breast milk in the category of evil food and burgers in the category of great food. One can make a case for all foods to be put in either category when looked at in isolation, but we have to look at the overall balance of children's diets and how Government Intervention and regulation can help, given that we have a public health epidemic of childhood obesity and we are storing up a physical time bomb in the next generation. That is why we need regulation of advertising.

We need a ban on junk food advertising, because advertisers treat children as consumers. Last year, they spent more than £700 million advertising to children. Parents are tired of being pestered by their children to buy foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt, simply because they recognise Bart Simpson, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine or any of a host of Disney characters on biscuits, cereals and yoghurts when shopping in supermarkets.

I turn to the case of the mysterious, disappearing Mr. Greedy. I bought a tin of hotdogs a month ago in a high street supermarket. This is the tin I bought—

Order. May I explain gently to the hon. Lady that visual aids are discouraged in the Chamber.

I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although the menu from Didcot appears to have escaped similar notice. I bought the tin a month ago in which the hotdogs were 40 per cent. pork and 40 per cent. mechanically separated turkey. Mr. Greedy appeared prominently on the label and it was clearly marketed at children. The label does not say that the sausages contain more than 4g of salt, which is more than the entire recommended daily intake for a five-year-old child. We all now know that 6g is the recommended adult daily intake.

I went back a couple of weeks later and bought the same product. Mr. Greedy had disappeared, interestingly, and chicken had replaced the mechanically separated turkey—another win. Crucially, the salt content had also been halved. That shows that food companies will make reasonable, healthy products that one would consider giving to one's children, but only if they are forced to do so. If that is what can happen to one product that is named and shamed, how much more powerful would a ban on such marketing be?

We need to get the multinational food companies out of our schools, our classrooms and our hospitals. Why should they be given access to places where children are at their most eager to learn or, in the case of a children's ward, at their most vulnerable? Those companies sponsor walking buses and exercise books, print leaflets and publish websites, all with one simple aim: product placement and brand promotion, aimed at children and disguised as philosophy. It simply has to stop. Little children must be protected from big business.

I hope that before the hon. Lady finishes her exposition she will give us her assessment of the role of the parent in all this. I searched the Bill for "the parent" and finally found a mention in Clause 5(2)(a), but only to say that the regulations that the hon. Lady proposes would not apply to

"the provision of foods or drinks . . . brought to school by a child or by the parent or guardian of a child".

That is sensible, but what role does the hon. Lady see for the parent in taking the prime responsibility for guiding children and protecting them from the evils that she alleges exist?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his valuable point. I shall come on to that because the second part of the Bill is about teaching children how to cook and grow food.

There is a generation, and I count myself among it, that has not been particularly well taught about cooking at school. I can remember reducing one of my home economics teachers almost to tears in my attempts at making chocolate éclairs, and that was when I was 18, so there was really no excuse. People of my generation are not particularly good at cooking, and with more women in the work force there is less time for mothers and fathers to cook and more pressure to buy pre-packed and processed foods.

When we teach children about the environment, they go home and educate their parents about the environment. If we teach children about food, they will choose healthier food and help to educate their parents as well. In disadvantaged areas with Sure Start, mothers and fathers are learning much more about food and food co-operatives are being set up. One of the problems in areas with poor public transport is that parents cannot get to a supermarket to buy cheap, healthy produce. They are stuck in a food desert, so they cannot buy any fresh produce, locally produced or not, but are reliant on small local shops, which predominantly sell pre-packed and tinned foods.

Following on from the point made by Mr. Forth, does my hon. Friend agree that it is difficult for adults, particularly parents, to make informed choices about the food that they buy because information on the products is often misleading and it can be difficult to ascertain precisely how unhealthy some food is?

I thank my hon. Friend for that Intervention. To determine the salt content of the hotdogs that I mentioned, one has to multiply the sodium content per 100 g by 2.5 and then multiply it by 2.1 because the product weighs 210 g. The packaging may say that the food contains only 0.8 g of sodium per 100 g, but that is saltier than sea water. Unless one is extremely good at mental arithmetic—those of us with small children do not spend time in the supermarket getting our calculators out—it is difficult to make a judgment. Food labelling is key to this issue.

Jamie Oliver's programme showed parents and children the realities of school food, but we should not rely on TV celebrities to educate children about what goes into a Turkey Twizzler. That work has to start at age five and continue until age 16. At the moment, children leave school able to quote Shakespeare but unable to boil an egg—I happily confess that that was the case with me. They need to be able to use pots and pans as well as a tin opener. In parts of France where there is a food education programme, obesity in children has risen by less than 1 per cent. in 10 years, compared with an increase of 98 to 100 per cent. in the rest of the country.

Finally, the Bill places a duty on the Government to promote healthy foods to children and equip them to make informed choices about food. We need to wean children off processed food and promote fresh, local, seasonal produce. That is an ongoing challenge.

One of the attractions of Clause 4 is that it makes the important link between the practicalities of providing healthy school meals and the delivery of food education in the classroom. Does the hon. Lady agree that with hindsight we can see that making food technology and food education voluntary subjects in primary schools means that, with all the other pressures on teachers, they are inevitably sidelined? Her Bill gives them the pre-eminence that they deserve.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising an interesting question about the place of food in the curriculum. I know that there are many pressures on the curriculum and that children learning to read, write and add up is the pre-eminent reason for sending them to school. Teaching about food is not compulsory; many schools are doing that type of work, but it is often not well structured or valued. We have to provide a framework within the national curriculum so that schools can see that such provision is in their interest—the healthy schools initiative could provide a wrapper for such provision. In that way, rather than regard it as yet another Government initiative, schools would feel that they were contributing to the national curriculum. I look forward to working on that with Education Ministers as the schools white paper progresses.

Does my hon. Friend envisage a role for the youth service? Statutory education provision is not the only thing that could help. In addition, the Government's extended schools scheme could provide time after and before school to promote healthy eating, to teach young people about food and to give them the opportunity to cook healthy food themselves.

I agree. Non-formal education has a vital role to play. Many children learn through non-formal channels, such as guides, scouts and other youth organisations, which provide invaluable help in teaching children about the process of becoming adults.

When one visits a school and sees something that the children have made together, one sees their sense of shared pride in their achievement. When my three-year-old son came home from nursery with a biscuit the other day, it was as if the holy grail had arrived in our living room. Of course, he did not wait until I got home to eat it, so I was unable to worship it. Being able to cook a biscuit is a great achievement for a three-year-old.

Schools exist to develop children's minds and to introduce them to the wonders of the world around them, but we must not forget their bodies, as their minds will not focus or concentrate without decent food. The Government have already ensured that all schools, wherever they are and whatever their intake, will provide healthy, nutritious meals for children. With the support of the House, my Bill will be able to protect children from junk food advertising and teach them cooking skills to last them a lifetime.

Promoting this Bill in the House has been an education to me as a parent and as a politician. I truly believe that we are approaching a tipping point for junk food advertising. I hope that this Parliament will be remembered for improving the eating habits of a generation and for stemming the increase in childhood obesity. Our children deserve nothing less. I thank colleagues on both sides of the House for their kind support and commend the Bill to the House.

I congratulate Mary Creagh not only on obtaining a high position in the ballot, but on her excellent presentation of her Bill and her robust rejection of some of the interventions.

I am delighted to speak in support of the Bill. Some of the proposals might appear rather illiberal—such as banning the supply of certain foods in vending machines and banning the advertising of junk food to children—but I believe that there is no choice but that the Government make significant interventions to tackle poor nutrition. For too long we have allowed food marketing companies to influence our family diets and the television media to develop further our already sedentary lifestyle. We must now empower our citizens to lead a healthy lifestyle. Action now is imperative and an obvious starting point is children.

The problem facing children and their parents and carers is enormous. We have heard a lot of statistics on obesity: studies suggest that more than 1 million children in the UK are obese—an enormous number. Obesity is linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, so we are storing up a huge national health service bill for the future.

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Both she and Mary Creagh correctly identified the serious problem of childhood obesity. We are perhaps ignoring the important factor that the calorie intake of both children and adults over a number of decades has remained relatively flat, if not fallen. The big problem is that children today, and adults, are taking decreasing amounts of exercise. To solve the problem of obesity, we would do better to focus on exercise rather than only on food.

We need to focus on exercise as well.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I shall continue, because I wish there to be a satisfactory conclusion to our proceedings on the Bill today. I shall do my utmost to be as brief and concise as possible.

I concede the point about exercise. That is why it is important to have a whole-curriculum approach within the healthy lifestyle. The British Dental Health Foundation has drawn our attention to the dental decay that is experienced by half of five to 10-year-olds.

It is certainly time for the Government to be involved in addressing the issues, and we need the steps that are proposed today to turn round the current trend. There is almost an obsession with health and fitness in national newspaper columns and reality television programming, but we need political leadership and action. Responsibility for the healthy diet of children, both in and out of school, has to lie with parents and children themselves, but a significant dose of support from schools and Government is an important starting point.

Even before "Jamie's School Dinners" hit our screens in March and mobilised more than 270,000 citizens to lobby the Government to increase spending on quality ingredients, research had shown that a nutritious diet free from artificial additives and processed food can significantly improve behaviour and concentration in school children.

I shall refer briefly to a study that was carried out in a school that I know that is in a relatively deprived area. Two thirds of its pupils were asked about food intake during the day. Their answers were alarming. Virtually all the children were eating and drinking highly processed food that is high in sugar and fat—if they ate and drank anything at all. Most students admitted drinking relatively little during the day, often only fizzy drinks, which puts them at risk of spending much of the day significantly dehydrated.

The teacher responsible for the study made a pertinent comment. She said:

"What is the point of spending a fortune on key stage 3 secondary strategies when so many kids are just not capable of learning as their brains are not functioning? It is like trying to fine tune the engine of a car that has got the wrong fuel in it."

The teacher also pointed out:

"Jamie Oliver's campaign is not affecting our students—they will run offsite to the chip shop or bring their junk food in with them, despite having a canteen with healthy options."

Many Members have mentioned the healthy options, which I am pleased are in our schools. However, the study underlines the fact that we know that some young people will still get junk food. We need all the proposals in the Bill to come together and a holistic approach.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I wish to be quick so as to allow others to speak.

I welcome the announcements that have already been made by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills on provisions in the Bill. It makes a great deal of sense to take the junk food out of school vending machines and to ensure that we give clear and consistent messages about what is actually happening and what is said in the classroom. We have to take responsibility for the mental and physical development of our children. Let us ponder on "You are what you eat". If we keep that at the back of our minds, we will be able to get totally on message. Supermarket chains could do more to promote healthy food. I would like the traffic lights system to be used to help identify nutritious food and to educate us about healthy choices.

To concentrate briefly on specific proposals in the Bill, I support the proposed new duty on the Department of Health to promote healthy eating for children. I would like to see the Government extending the school fruit and vegetable scheme to older children. That would go well along with other parts of the package.

The moves to tackle school meals and ensure that there are minimum nutritional standards are long overdue. Many schools operate good schemes, but I wonder why we had to wait for Jamie to show us the way. In Dorset, not a single primary school has an on-site kitchen, so I am worried that there will not be enough money to meet the Government's aspirations on school meals. However, the principles of the measure are right, and I am happy to support them.

We certainly need to do something about advertising. For every £1 spent promoting healthy eating, £500 is spent marketing unhealthy food, so the market has clearly failed. Advertising promotions determine our children's food choices and propel them down a single route. The producer is king. I agree that if we limit the advertising of unhealthy food for children, many parents will be under less pressure to give in to their requests for fast food. The Government have obviously accepted the principle that advertising should be limited, as they are talking to respected members of the industry, but they must be prepared to act if change has not taken place by early 2007. However, we cannot afford to wait that long, and we should take action today by supporting the Bill.

We should put the clock back and offer practical cookery lessons in schools. It is also desirable that food should be grown on school grounds. Finally, I agree with the Food Standards Agency that we need to assess the impact of food on children's health and well-being.

In conclusion, the Bill's provisions are all necessary. Other measures are required too, but I urge hon. Members to support it.

The issues raised by the Bill are extremely important, because food has a significant impact on children's health and well-being. Some people, including hon. Members, argue that politics should stay away from this issue, and that it has become a target of the nanny state. However, that should not be the case. Politicians should care about these issues, because this is not just about diet but about ensuring that children have the best start in life regardless of their background.

More than ever before, we know that the food that children eat has a profound impact on their health and their wider opportunities. If children eat too much of the wrong food they will start school overweight, they will be less able to concentrate on their lessons and will do less well at school, which will have an impact on the opportunities open to them later in life. The Bill is therefore about opportunity and the capacity of every child, whatever their background, to make the most of their life. In my Constituency, Wolverhampton City primary care trust estimates that 32 per cent. of children starting school aged four or five are overweight, and 14 per cent. are obese. Nationally, the respective figures are 24 per cent. and 11 per cent. Even before children start school, food and diet are vital issues.

I am not a parent, but I am not sure that three and four-year-olds clamour for unhealthy food. We must be careful not to adopt sticking-plaster solutions, as the root cause of the problem is a lack of understanding among parents about a healthy diet. Surely, a junk food advertising ban is only a temporary solution, not a permanent one.

The point I was trying to make is that the issue is not just what children eat at school. Diet is vital from the very earliest years.

Has my hon. Friend ever observed a three or four-year-old having a tantrum because they were denied something at the supermarket checkout, which was advertised as something they simply must have now?

Indeed, but I would like to make progress.

Among older children among Wolverhampton the pattern is, if anything, worse than among four and five-year-olds. The PCT estimates that 40 per cent. of 11 to 12-year-olds are overweight, of whom 24 per cent. are obese. Seven years ago these figures were half their current levels. The pattern is clear. It is not only bad for the individual children involved, but it is an increasing cost to the country. The Department of Health estimates that the cost of obesity in terms of treatment, absence from work through ill health and premature death may be several billion pounds. Of course no single factor is responsible, but the growth in the number of overweight children must be down in large measure to the diet and the food that they eat.

Some supermarkets are making progress and some are taking positive action to reduce the levels of salt, sugar and fat in the food that we eat, but we need more progress. The issue matters because it affects the life chances of those children, their health and the opportunity that they enjoy.

In earlier interventions colleagues emphasised the importance of ingraining good habits. I am sure my hon. Friend would be interested in the example of Daubeny primary school in Homerton in my Constituency, in the heart of the inner city, which has just won £1,000 to set up a vegetable garden in the school. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a great way of teaching children, especially in cities, the origins of food and the habits of good eating?

I agree with my hon. Friend. That sounds like a very good example, which I am sure may be followed elsewhere.

The Bill is not a magic wand or a silver bullet. Every Clause is not necessarily 100 per cent. right, but it puts the subject of children's food at the heart of the health agenda, where it belongs—a subject that deserves further debate and consideration in the House.

In her speech Mary Creagh described at length the problem of obesity, so I will not dwell on that. I want to pick up one of the points I made earlier about exercise. As other Members have mentioned their constituencies, I shall speak about mine, the Forest of Dean. The forest itself has been described to me by the Forestry Commission as the largest gym in the land. I encourage all young people and indeed all adults to journey to the forest of Dean and use its delights for exercise, whether walking or cycling.

Over the past few years the amount of physical activity undertaken by young people has been declining. Fewer young people walk to school—increasing numbers are driven. The proportion of youngsters playing sport at school has fallen.

The hon. Gentleman is right. Children have far fewer opportunities for play than they used to have. I hope he will join the all-party parliamentary group on children's play as soon as it is set up. However, we also need to attend to diet. I hope he will turn to that now.

I will—that is a good link. One of the things that interests me is the focus on diet, as opposed to single items of food. Vincent Marks, the emeritus professor of clinical biochemistry at the university of Surrey, has pointed out that there are

"bad diets—that is, bad mixtures and quantities of food—but there are no 'bad foods'" individually. It is important to remember that if a child has a can of fizzy drink or eats an individual item of food that may be described as junk, that is not a problem as long as the child has a balanced diet.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

If the hon. Lady—oh, go on.

The hon. Gentleman has said that there is no such thing as bad food and that we must consider balanced diets. What does he say about Mr. Greedy sausages, which contain more salt than seawater and are made of mechanically separated turkey? Are they the sort of thing that he would feed his child, his dog or himself?

The hon. Lady has complained about supermarkets and evil multinationals indulging in product placement, but she has given a tremendous amount of advertising—probably more than the manufacture could have dreamed of—to Mr. Greedy sausages. Mr. Greedy sausages sound like something that I would enjoy eating, and I am sure that my two black Labradors, Cara and Darci, would be keen, too.

Under the Bill, the Food Standards Agency would have a significant amount of influence on the regulation of advertising. My hon. Friend Mr. Hoban has already alluded to a recent FSA analysis, which came up with some interesting results. The analysis, which is perhaps counter-intuitive, states that healthier foods include oven chips, chicken tikka masala, spaghetti bolognaise and sliced white bread, and that less healthy foods include cornflakes, bran flakes and polyunsaturated margarine. The FSA has defended its model, stating that the Government's Advisory Committee on Nutrition believes that the model accurately identifies foods that could be subject to future broadcast advertising restrictions. Putting it in control of advertising restriction may not lead to an outcome with which Mary Creagh will be comfortable.

I am intrigued. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the FSA is not an appropriate body to rule on nutritional standards? And does he realise that the packet is often a better source of nutrition than cornflakes themselves?

I was simply drawing attention to the fact that hon. Members and others outside the House may be surprised when they consider the products that the FSA analysis describes as "healthy". If the FSA were in charge of advertising restrictions, it might not reach conclusions that the hon. Member for Wakefield likes.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst—

Right hon. Friend.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that correction and hope that he will forgive me.

When I read the Bill, I was disappointed to find that the word "parent" is mentioned only once. Two out of three meals eaten by children are provided at home by their parents rather than in the school environment.

The hon. Gentleman has pointed out that two out three meals eaten by children are eaten in the home, which makes it that much more important to control advertising, because advertising leads children to pressure their parents to give them food that they should not eat day in, day out.

That is an interesting point. If the hon. Member for Wakefield thought that the role of parents is important, I suspect that it would have been mentioned more frequently in the Bill.

The Bill supports and assists parents; it does not impose on them. That is proved by the fact that parents are mentioned only once. Can the hon. Gentleman name one aspect of the Bill that a parent would object to?

I suspect that most parents, certainly those outside this House, are not given to studying Bills in great detail, so I cannot suggest any one that they would find particularly objectionable.

I shall draw my remarks to a close to give the Minister time to speak. Clause 5 says that the appropriate authority, namely, the Secretary of State, could prescribe offences by prohibiting the sale and provision of food. If the hon. Lady wants to start creating criminal offences to do with selling food, it would be more sensible if those powers were included in the Bill instead of allowing the Secretary of State to make them through regulation.

I congratulate my hon. Friend Mary Creagh on introducing the Bill and on the passionate way in which she spoke about these extremely important issues. She showed that she has a great deal of support for her proposals from stakeholders, trade unions and health professionals, as well as from Members on both sides of the House. Although we cannot support all aspects of her proposals, I hope that I can give her some reassurance. We are legislating in certain areas, as she said, and the measures that we are proposing will be carefully monitored in other areas where we are not legislating at present but have made it clear that we will do so if we cannot achieve the improvements that we seek.

Can the Minister be a little more specific about which bits of the Bill the Government do not support?

I did not say that we do not support measures in the Bill—I said that we are taking forward legislation in certain areas; those include education. In other areas, we are working in partnership with industry and other stakeholders. We have made it clear that we would prefer a partnership approach, but we have also made it clear that, because of the importance of the issues raised, if we do not see improvements in standards we will consider whether further measures are needed, for example through legislation. We are very supportive of my hon. Friend because many of the matters that she highlights concern key steps to improving the diet and health of young people and our future generations.

Hon. Members clearly set out some of the issues at hand. My hon. Friend Mr. McFadden described the effect that poor nutritional standards are having in his Constituency, drawing attention to information sent to him by the primary care trust. Annette Brooke noted the importance of our having a clear understanding of the relationship between certain foods and children's health, well-being and educational performance.

We want to restrict the promotion to children of foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar, and to increase the promotion of healthier products. We want improvements in the nutritional quality of food and drink that is provided throughout the school day. We want to teach school children about practical cookery. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield said, if we can get it right during the school day by improving children's knowledge, that can translate into the attitude of parents as well; she gave some good examples of how that can work. However, I would say—

It being half-past Two o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed Friday 16 June.