Member

Sharon Hodgson and I are hoping to meet Minister Bailey from the Department for Education, who is now responsible for school food, to discuss our plan for the inquiry. If the Minister can assure us that the Government are going to do a similar root-and-branch overhaul of school food, there may be no need for the all-party group to go ahead with this inquiry. However, if she prefers to wait for the recommendations of the all-party group inquiry, I hope that she and the Minister can assure us today that the Government will take whatever action is necessary to implement the inquiry’s recommendations in the interests of our children’s future health. She will know that all-party group inquiries are cross-party and can be enormously helpful to Governments, since they are close to the grass roots of the problem that they are looking at. You have only to look at how helpful the All-Party Group on Smoking and Health has been to the Government in devising the Tobacco and Vapes Bill currently before Parliament.