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Plenary, 14 Mar 2007

14 Mar 2007 · S2 · Plenary

Item of business

Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Grahame, Christine SNP South of Scotland Watch on SPTV

I refer to the comments that I made on my amendments at stage 2.

During stage 1, Barnardo's Scotland referred to the

"difference between the percentage of children who live in poverty—23 per cent—and the percentage of children who are eligible for free school meals, which is 18 per cent".

Barnardo's further commented:

"It seems strange that an anti-poverty measure is set at a level that excludes an awful lot of children who it is accepted live in poverty."—[Official Report, Communities Committee, 22 November 2006; c 4331.]

I am also obliged to Save the Children for its paper entitled "Children Can't Wait", which advises that there are currently 240,000 children in Scotland who live in poverty.

The SNP seeks to extend the provision of free school meals to children whose families are on a wide range of benefits other than the current qualifying benefits, which I understand are income support, income-based jobseekers allowance and support for asylum seekers. My amendments seek to extend eligibility to children whose families are on low incomes and receive the following benefits: the working tax credit, because the parents are getting back into the jobs market; the lone parents benefit run-on; council tax benefit; housing benefit; and local housing allowance, which I understand applies instead of housing benefit in some areas, such as Argyll. We all know how difficult it is to access benefits in Scotland, so the people concerned are very needy.

Jack McConnell, who has been in power for eight years but who has now been pushed into a corner by the Scottish National Party, said recently that the Executive

"will, in the first year of the next Parliament, extend entitlement and reverse the shameful decision made by the Tories to cut school meals."

It is not my position ever to defend the Tories, and I am not doing that. However, I want members to consider who is really to blame. Jack McConnell said that he would extend entitlement

"to families on maximum working tax credit"

in order to

"give nearly 100,000 kids"—

his word—

"access to a free healthy meal, and … improve their lives."

In the debate on the Education (School Meals) Scotland Bill in June 2003, my colleague, Fiona Hyslop, proposed those very measures, yet the Labour and Liberal Democrat Government voted against them. I smell an election coming. The Executive parties feel that they have to do something, just as they did for the nurses.

When I lodged my amendments at stage 2, Scott Barrie said of children in Glasgow:

"They were already entitled to free meals but sought to go outwith the school to the local shops or wherever to get snacks or meals. We really need to address that point. A number of people who are entitled to free school meals do not take them. By extending provision, there is no guarantee that the very people we want to reach are the ones who would actually take up free meals."

He continued:

"That is where we should be concentrating our efforts, certainly at the start. We should see whether that makes a difference before we spend resources in a way that might not achieve what we all want to achieve."—[Official Report, Communities Committee, 13 February 2007; c 4569.]

I suppose that Jack McConnell has had a word in his ear since then.

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Plenary, 14 Mar 2007

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