On the first, I agree entirely. There are still examples of entirely inappropriate advertising, even with the tougher voluntary codes that have been adopted. Some of the links to merchandising have been broken. My son is big enough to be beyond this now-in fact he is bigger than me-but he used to link a lot of his eating patterns to merchandising for food products. Clearly that is very unhelpful to parents.

On the second element, I can remember having free school milk as a child. I thought it valuable and it was. It was focused on a particular requirement at the time-the poor calcium content in diets, which may well have been remedied in a rather more affluent age. I support my hon. Friend in giving some further thought to making that a part of our strategy.

The research to date gives a strong indication of where the scheme might help. Fruit and vegetable consumption falls sharply in school year 3, where the scheme ends. I will be utterly fair: the research suggests that there is a more complicated pattern than simply the termination of the school fruit scheme. It is not the case that because we stop giving out free fruit in year 3, all of a sudden the consumption of fruit and vegetables declines. It is not as simple as that, but that does appear to be part of the picture, and if we extend the scheme there is a reasonable chance that we can defer at least some of the change in the pattern of consumption among young people.

Nutrition is an increasingly large part of the curriculum in junior years. The scheme would be a powerful practical tool for reinforcing key nutritional messages, and for ensuring that fruit and vegetables are seen not as a supplement to a poor diet but as replacements for excessive consumption of less useful foods. As the school curriculum rolls on to later years, the important elements of this scheme could be utilised still more as an educational tool, and be linked in with the science curriculum in a school, so teachers could say, for instance, "By consuming more apples, you'll get more fibre. Why is fibre important?" That would carry through some of the key educational messages, many of which cannot be taught nearly so readily to very young children. Habits are more likely to stick in an older child.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will address some of the questions that I have raised. I have referred to the complexity of this subject; it engages a remit wider than that of the Department of Health. Indeed, to some extent, the Department is an uneasy parent of the scheme. I would therefore like, first, to know what consultations have taken place with other interested Departments, such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Secondly, what were the pilots my hon. Friend the Minister referred to in one of her parliamentary answers? Thirdly, what is happening to the European Union money being offered to this country? I agree that just over €11 million is not going to solve our Government's problems at a stroke, but it is nevertheless a material sum when contributed towards a key objective of this kind.

I am also interested in the age point, and the change in consumption that occurs then. What researched basis is there for favouring a scheme provided only to infants? I have talked about the year 3 impact-the drop in consumption of fruit and vegetables. We need to know more about this, and relate it to the scheme, which is a tool to address it. Is there any research that shows what changes happen at this point in a child's life, and how we can blunt them or, more optimistically, stop them happening, and thereby sustain the consumption of fruit and vegetables over a much longer period? If there is some doubt about the application of this scheme to older children, would it not be sensible to trial an extension to a broader age range to see what the effect is?

As I illustrated earlier in my speech, we have been used to trials on this subject. We did valuable work in testing how things worked, how effectively we could distribute the food, and what impact it really had on children and schools. We could readily trial this beyond the current age group. I very much look forward to hearing the response of my hon. Friend the Minister.