Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made the potential health benefits of the EU School Fruit and Vegetables Scheme; and for what reasons the Government took the decision to opt out of that scheme.

The aim of getting children to eat more healthily is a priority for the Government, which has run its own highly successful domestic scheme since 2000, predating that of the EU scheme. The UK’s scheme provides one portion of fruit or vegetable per child aged 4 to 6, per day, a level which is over and above that which would be provided through the EU scheme. By doing this the Government is helping to improve children’s health and contributing to a healthier nation through measures laid out in the Childhood Obesity Plan.