Foster-Bell Paul: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2406. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I rise to speak in this first reading debate of the Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill. I absolutely sympathise with the intention of the member David Shearer in bringing this bill before the House. As a former teacher he has spoken about the impacts that going to school hungry can have on the pedagogical outcomes we would seek to have delivered in our New Zealand schools. I do not think there is any debate over that as a matter of fact. I did listen very carefully to some of the previous contributions and we had one from a member of the Opposition about what things were like when he was growing up. I thought I would share a similar story since we have heard this already during this debate.I cannot claim to have had any particular hardship at all in my upbringing. I was fortunate enough to grow up on a farm north of Auckland where we always had sufficient food partially because we grew a lot of produce—fruit and vegetables as well as the meat and the milk that came off the land. But throughout my time at school I really did see the full gamut of the New Zealand educational system from a decile 10 small rural primary school Otaika Primary School through to a school that was actually referenced earlier in question time today by Metiria Turei Manaia View School except when I was there it was known as Raumanga Intermediate a decile 1 school and definitely one of the most challenging for the teachers and one of the poorest schools in New Zealand hence the decile 1 rating. Then I went to Whangarei Boys’ High School a decile 5 State school.I think it is absolutely something we would all agree on—that children going to school hungry is an issue that needs to be addressed and that is why this Government has put in a significant effort and funding to the tune of $9.5 million to set up the KickStart programme to provide breakfasts in schools. This programme has provided 3.4 million breakfasts and actually more—100000 or so—every week reaching 26000 children on a weekly basis. But if I think back to my time at Raumanga Intermediate and think of the parents some of whom were in pretty tough economic conditions I remember that they managed to send their children to school with a decent breakfast. It may not have been anything particularly flash. It might have been something along the lines of what is delivered under the KickStart programme—a couple of Weet-Bix served up with milk or perhaps a couple of pieces of toast and some Marmite—but it was a nutritious breakfast so that kids had a full tummy and could get on with the day’s learning. I think this is something this Government would want to see happen but we do not want to take away from the responsibility of parents to make sure that their children are turning up to school nutritionally able to undertake a day’s learning.There are other complexities and challenges that this legislation would introduce. By making it a responsibility of the State rather than allowing schools to access the programme that is a partnership between Sanitarium and Fonterra alongside community involvement in running a breakfast club we face a huge issue with the management of schools including capital issues in schools around setting up kitchens and spaces to prepare food when the vast majority of parents as we know are perfectly able and capable of making sure their children take a packed lunch to school or potentially have access to the school tuck shop.Also the funding appropriated by Parliament for education is for that purpose and I would wonder operationally how this would fit. I do not know—perhaps the member who has backed this bill has another opportunity to tell us more about how this fits in. We are talking about effectively the provision of a social service via schools so I would actually be interested to hear more about that. But because of the complexities that we have identified plus also the lack of necessity given we already have the KickStart Breakfast programme I personally will not be supporting this bill any further. Thank you.