The title of today’s debate is Education, Children and Health.

It would seem to me, and I am sure many other honourable members, that a major step forward in each of these areas would be ensuring that we are simply doing all we can to ‘educate children ABOUT health’.

The government is responding well to the challenges we face these in these areas.

I know from local experience the increased investment, massive modernisation and newfound availability of aspiration which have developed in local communities.

In education there are fantastic new schools in my constituency now.

At the brand new Cardinal Hume Catholic School in Gateshead it is a joy to see both teachers and pupils excited about their new learning environment and the facilities which are on offer to them.

Oxclose School in Washington has been fully refurbished using money made available through Building Schools for the Future, and is a lesson to all of us that you don’t always have to knock something down and start again to make it better.

I want to talk today about two issues which can be clearly linked across health and education.

The government rightly notes the need to tackle obesity, promote skills and change lifestyles.

If we can do this successfully the results will have an impact for possibly millions of individuals but most importantly for the future physical and economic health of the nation.

My constituency suffers from health inequalities which must be reversed. Obesity rates are higher than average, smoking rates are higher than average, cancer rates are higher than average and deaths from heart disease are higher than average.

Despite this, I would like to remind honourable members that it remains one of the most scenic and friendly places you could hope to live perhaps not just in Britain but across the world.

So I have been seeking steps that could benefit children’s health and educational attainment in my constituency and it becomes clear that we must go further still on delivering good quality school food.

At the moment we have tales of mums passing pizzas through the school gates, chip shops making record lunchtime profits and some children causing a mess and being a nuisance out on the streets.

The solution I would propose to this is straight forward and simple.

Free, universal, locally sourced, hot school lunches given to pupils under the age of 16, coupled with, a policy whereby pupils are not allowed off the school site at lunchtimes.

A ‘lunch time lock in’ if you like.

For this to work properly packed lunches should be discouraged with an eventual move towards an outright ban on packed lunches altogether.

At the moment a large number of parents send their children to school with a packed lunch but unfortunately most lunchboxes are far from healthy. Children have even been known to turn up to school with cold left over McDonald’s for lunch.

What parent would go to the hassle and cost of providing a packed lunch – healthy or otherwise, if they can have a free healthy hot dinner for their child. This save £7.40 a week per child, imagine the cost for larger families – no wonder they opt to send their ids to school with a packed lunch.

Sourcing food locally would not only cut down on food miles but play a role in supporting the local economy.

In addition free, universal, locally sourced school meals would remove any stigma that is often attached to claiming free school meals.

At the moment, children who are entitled to take up free meals don’t do so because they would rather be with their friends who are probably having a packed lunch in primary school or at the chippy in secondary school.

250,000 children who are entitled to free school meals don’t get them because they don’t claim them. In my constituency hundreds of children lose out everyday despite the best efforts of my local councils to increase take up.

A universal free school meals policy has been working in Sweden, Finland and the Honduras. It has not failed to deliver significant results. Closer to home we are now seeing pilots in Scotland and North Tyneside.

These pilots are possible because of the changes made in the 2006 Education and Inspections Bill. This piece of legislation removed any statutory obligation on schools to charge for meals, so let’s now make the most of that change - surely that is why it was made.

More recently, school meals have fallen under a less nostalgic spotlight. Thanks in no small part to the efforts of Jamie Oliver, we are having to face up to the consequences of opening up our school kitchens to competitive tendering. The “profit at all costs” mentality so prevalent throughout the era of Conservative Government led to our nation’s school dinner tables becoming awash with high levels of salt, E numbers and mechanically recovered meat. This government has taken welcome initial steps to address that decline and I would encourage Minister’s to be bold in their thinking and deliver a real difference to all children across Britain.

This would of course have a cost implication, but the long term benefits in boosting educational attainment, fighting child poverty, combating climate change and tackling head on health inequalities must begin to outweigh the costs.

Estimates of the cost vary. Though I have heard a figure of £2billion estimated. However, the House of Commons Library which is a highly respected and credible source, puts the cost at between 0.9billion and 1.1 Billion. This includes the cost of providing more meals and restructuring current catering contracts but also savings made through greater economies of scale. This is not peanuts although I would add that universal provision would not require the resources being devoted to increasing the take-up by those eligible already. But it is still only about 0.2% of government spending.

It is also worth noting at this stage, that the cost of obesity is conservatively estimated to be about £3.5 Billion a year. So as the old adage goes – a stitch in time.

I’m sure that provides us with some food for thought and I hope the minister digests it well.

The second issue I want to raise is very much concerned with education. I want to call on Ministers to train a dyslexia specialist in every school who will then in turn train all teachers to recognise the signs of dyslexia.

I would also propose that all teachers during their training are taught a compulsory SEN module rather than the current status quo where SEN is an optional extra.

As a parent with a severely dyslexic son I know only too well the pressure and frustration many other parents in the same situation face.

I have had direct dealings, as a parent, with two local authorities and although I am only too aware of the extra funding and support the government has put into special educational needs, I am also aware of the complexities and sometimes shortcomings of the statementing process. My son was, eventually, statemented and with this comes not only the recognition that he does need extra help – but also the extra funding to pay for it.

I think that we can give all dyslexic children across the country the help they need and save money at the same time.

Dyslexia affects one in ten people. That means there are around one million dyslexic children in our schools at this moment in time.

These pupils need extra help and support. All of our brains work in different ways and although there are proven teaching methods which work well for the majority we have to ensure that the minority are equally well supported.

One size will not fit all for our pupils and we need to consider whether we can adapt the teaching of phonics for some pupils who are proven to respond more quickly to the method of teaching synthetic phonics.

We are encouraging more pupils with special educational needs to be included in mainstream education and this is a laudable objective but, again, will be right for only some and not all. At the same time by giving children statements we are identifying them as having additional needs and we have to ensure that these needs are adequately met.

We need to ensure that those pupils with special educational needs already in mainstream education are being given special teaching with teachers who are qualified and able to meet their needs.

Everywhere I go in my constituency I find that people are being given a greater role in shaping the institutions which shape their lives. After all that is the only route to the personalised services which we wish to see.

It has taken us ten years of government and we have come an awful long way and we could not have done it without listening to the people, the stakeholders. We have then, to listen to parents of dyslexic children.

A recent survey of such parents carried out by the charity Xtraordinary people and the British Dyslexic Association says that:

9 out of 10 think the support their children are receiving is ineffective 9 out of 10 say their children have not caught up with their peers. 7 out of 10 believe their children are being given support by staff who have no specialist training in dyslexia

I welcome the one-on-one tuition which is being given to those children who are falling behind in school.

But for dyslexic pupils what makes the biggest difference is the opportunity to spend time with a specially trained teacher.

I will give the house an example:

Ben, a 12 year old dyslexic pupil had spent 6 years being helped by a Learning Support Assistant at a cost of £27,000 pounds and had shown little, if any, improvement.

After only 20 hours working with a dyslexia specialist Ben’s reading and spelling age rose by 2 years at a cost of only £600.

I am proud to see the government delivering nearly £1 billion in funding for personalised learning but we must ensure that the money is spent wisely and not wasted.

By having a specialist dyslexia teacher in every school and training all teachers to recognise dyslexia we can ensure a brighter future for all dyslexic pupils across the country.

These specialist teachers would not just teach pupils but share their skills with other teachers and develop a school specific dyslexia strategy.

This is a small step but it would help to unwrap the talents of every child in every school.

Some of the great inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs of in the history of our country were dyslexic such as Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Richard Branson, John Lennon and Andy Warhol.

Indeed Winston Churchill once said:

“I was on the whole, considerably discouraged by my school days. It was not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the beginning of the race.”

We need to ensure that we too are seen as innovators by making small progressive steps towards a better, brighter, healthier, future - for all of our young people.

The two steps I have outlined today would set the ball rolling and I hope that Minister’s will give them sincere consideration.

Universal Free School Meals and specialist dyslexia teachers in every school would, eventually, help to cut back costs, challenge child poverty, confront climate change, fight obesity, increase educational attainment, develop the nation’s skills and boost employability – so not a bad justification.

Now, I don’t want to suggest that just two policies offer us panaceas. But I am confident that pushing these policies forward will give us the opportunity to cement this labour government’s place, alongside many dyslexics, as visionary and innovative thinkers who helped to transform the lives of millions of children – and ultimately the whole country.