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Defence in the UK

I am aware of that, and I am grateful that the Select Committee made the recommendation, which I endorse. The hon. Gentleman should be asking those on his Front Bench what has happened since the recommendation. Right hon. and hon. Members who were at Education questions today will recall that I asked a question to do with the school meals service, and I named the three Army schools in Colchester which had their hot meals service taken away in April 2004 by Conservative-controlled Essex county council—admittedly, using legislation handed to it by the Labour Government. The simple fact is that while their dads are in Afghanistan or Iraq, the children back in Colchester are not able to have a hot school meal because the three Army schools, for whatever reason, do not provide it. My question to the Ministry is this: those schools are within minutes of the massive new kitchen arrangement in the super garrison that has been built, if the MOD can organise troops to go to Iraq and Afghanistan, can it not organise a system whereby hot meals can be taken from the garrison kitchens to those schools, so that the children of military personnel can have a hot midday meal, if that is the parents’ wish? I leave the thought. It is not beyond the wit of the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Education and Skills to work together on that one. Service children often have very different lives from other children and are frequently moved around, according to where their parents are stationed. That can cause instability. It is important that there is as little disturbance to their education as possible and that staff understand the demands placed on them. Again, the Defence Committee should be commended for its recent inquiry on the subject. The turbulence factor is a vital part of the life of children of military personnel. I had an Adjournment debate on that a few years back. It is worth reading the record to see what the Minister at the time said and what action has been taken. Two or three years ago when the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) was Secretary of State for Education and Skills he had a meeting in my constituency, which I heard about an hour after he arrived, with the heads and chairmen of governors of the Army schools, and he pledged additional money for the those schools. There were photographs and newspaper articles. It is interesting that every time I have pursued the matter, the upshot is that no additional funding has ever been forthcoming. Indeed, because of the fluctuation in the school rolls, which can be more pronounced in schools attended predominantly by children of military personnel, those schools have fewer resources than they had when the then Secretary of State for Education and Skills promised more. Another issue which I would like the Government to take seriously are the cuts in the strength of the Ministry of Defence police. There has been a 40 per cent. cut at the Colchester garrison, which means that the military families, the military schools and the garrison areas outside the wire have less Ministry of Defence police cover than they had before. That does not help the situation. The Essex police are called upon to provide additional cover to make up for the MOD police cuts. That means that civilian areas elsewhere have their cover diluted.