I shall be brief. I am delighted to be able to support my hon. Friend Mr. Todd in this very worthy debate, which has now been allocated three hours. That is not quite what he expected, and my contribution will certainly not fill those three hours-but I want to make a couple of points that I believe are pertinent. They follow on from the point made by my hon. Friend David Taylor about free school milk.

Some of us remember the politics of free school milk, and also recall who took it away. I shall pass on from that, however, and instead say that one of the disappointing consequences of the removal of that service from younger children was its irreparably damaging impact on the milk industry. For a long time dairy farmers bore a grudge, because it was through them that we used to guarantee the supply of free school milk to primary school children. As someone who benefited from that, I can say with conviction that I think it was a sad day when that service was removed.

Instead of discussing that, however, I want to look at the advantages of extending the current five-a-day fruit scheme into schools, and especially the supply side advantages of that. I say that as someone who has initiated a number of debates about the advantages of local supply chains. Much though I want children to eat fruit, I also want local farmers and landowners to have the opportunity to supply that fruit, particularly where there are county farm estates so that there is a natural circle to be joined, in that the children take the advantage of having that fruit, and it is supplied by county council smallholdings. That would provide a real kick-start.

The only advantage of global warming is that we will be able to grow some things naturally in this country that previously we could not grow naturally. Much as I do not want global warming, we would be somewhat silly if we turned down this opportunity. Therefore, I want to hear from the Minister that there is some work going on with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to see how we can secure such local food chains.

If we can do that for schools, we can do it for all manner of other local facilities. I am not calling for all that produce to be made freely available; I am just saying that this would be a wonderful way to kick-start the British horticultural industry, because it has a lot of potential, and at present too much of our fruit is imported from abroad when it does not need to be. If we get children accustomed to eating fruit, the demand that was initially satisfied through free provision might continue into later life, and other members of their family might also be tempted to go for five a day.

More importantly, this would encourage local suppliers. I am a great believer in farmers markets. Stroud farmers market is a great success because much of its produce comes from local suppliers of fruit and vegetables. This scheme would be another way of encouraging the industry to grow by allowing it to meet, in different ways, an important need.