A recent move to snatch school milk from the under-sevens has been defeated. Ashok Kumar MP, explains why he fought the proposal and why milk is so important to our children.

'MANY will remember the outcry in 1970 when an up-and-coming Conservative education minister withdrew free school milk for the over- sevens. And so the slogan "Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher" was born, one of the first high profile moments for the future Prime Minister as she ended something which had benefited generations of youngsters since the 1920s.

So I was very disappointed to learn recently that ministers from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs were being urged to go one step further than even Margaret Thatcher and scrap free school milk for the under sevens.

Consultants commissioned by Defra said that milk could be bought more cheaply in supermarkets. They questioned its health benefits and concluded that it wasn't good value for money.

However, the school milk scheme is funded mostly by the EU. The British Government pays £1.5m whereas the EU pays £5.5m to provide children in 15,000 schools with milk at a very low cost (the average cost to parents is 11.4p for a third of a pint). In the 2003-04 school year, 34.9 million litres of subsidised milk was drunk by about one million schoolchildren.

I think this is good value.

Milk is an essential part of a young person's diet. One cup of semi-skimmed provides almost 30 per cent of the recommended daily intake of calcium for an adult, which is crucial for the health of bones and teeth. Milk is also rich in vitamins and minerals which have a wide range of benefits, including potassium and magnesium for cardiovascular health, thiamine which improves the memory, and Vitamin A which boosts immunity.

If we take into account that dental decay in children costs the NHS around £45m a year and osteoporosis (brittle bones) costs around £970m a year, then providing children with milk in schools can potentially save the NHS millions in the long term.

I have no doubt that a poor diet can create a barrier to learning. All scientific studies are unanimous in their conclusions that improving the diet of young people has a positive effect on their concentration levels and their general behaviour. Therefore, healthy eating has a role in the Government's drive to improve classroom behaviour.

Following Jamie Oliver's comments, the Government has committed itself to improving the quality of school dinners. It has introduced measures to make food labelling more easily understood and has restricted junk food advertising aimed at children.

I felt that stopping school milk would fly in the face of the Government's achievements in this area.

And our campaign has been a success. The Government has listened to the Parliamentary debate and has overruled the consultants.

Now I feel we can go further and take greater advantage of this EU subsidy. According to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the average daily intake of milk for children aged four to seven is 370ml, but for those aged seven to 11, it is only 277ml. This shows the importance of milk being available in schools.

So we should now take advantage of the EU subsidy to give school milk to seven to 11-year-olds, as happened before it was snatched away from them by a certain Prime Minister-in-waiting.'

* Ashok Kumar is MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.