MORE EMPTY RHETORIC FAILS SCOTLAND'S CHILDREN

Tommy Sheridan, Scottish Socialist Party MSP and Convenor, today slammed the Executive’s latest “Healthy Eating Campaign” as yet more “empty rhetoric”.

He said,

“The latest Executive ‘initiative’ is far too little, given the size of the dietary health problem and amounts to yet more empty rhetoric. The First Minister had the opportunity to radically address Scotland’s woeful dietary health record through the introduction of universal, healthy and nutritious free school meals with milk and water. This is what the Finns and Swedes have done. They are now reaping the harvest of their investment. Mr McConnell and his colleagues voted down free school meals and exposed the emptiness of their concerns in the process. £1.75 million is hardly a drop in the dietary ill-health ocean.”

Tommy further said,

“The First Minister says he is determined the next generation of Scots will be “healthier”. Yet he ignored the pleas of Scotland’s anti-poverty groups, children’s charities, lone parent organisations and the British Medical Association when he rejected the Free School Meals Bill. Words won’t improve our children’s dietary health. Action will. We should fellow the example of Finland and Sweden. Universal free school meals worked for them. It could work for us as well.”
[ENDS]
For more information, contact Tommy Sheridan on 07887 795075 or Hugh Kerr on 0131 348 5631/07713 063647