Ministers to focus on child welfare
Labour ministers are to publish a ‘mini-manifesto’ on child welfare this morning, which will outline wide-ranging measures from internet safety to healthy diets.
Among the raft of proposals in the document is better protection against paedophiles, a clampdown on internet pornography, curbs on fast food advertising and the sale of tobacco to minors.
Labour’s election chief Alan Milburn, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly and Children’s Minister Margaret Hodge will call on parents to work with government to help improve children’s health and safety.
Included in the document is a £20 million parenting fund programme to help parents oversee children’s transition from primary to secondary school, with especial emphasis on combating anti-social behaviour such as truancy, drugs and alcohol abuse.
The trio will set out Labour’s school meals trust which aims to assist headteachers, parents and school governors in raising standards.
Tony Blair conceded over the weekend that more must be done to change the unhealthy school meals culture.
Writing in The Observer, the Prime Minister praised the work of chef Jamie Oliver in bringing the issue to the fore.
Mr Blair said the school meals trust would draw on the “remarkable work” of Mr Oliver and the Soil Association in “encouraging the use of organic and local produce in school meals, and on the best advice on nutrition and eliminating processed foods”.
One of the guiding threads of the document will be less state intervention and more positive and pro-active parenting.
It will say: “Government should never needlessly interfere in the lives of parents. The state doesn’t bring up children – people do.
“But Government should not abandon families either. Parents expect Government to be on their side as they bring up their children: providing help, support and security for themselves and their children when it is needed.”
