Carnegie is often amazed at how little has changed between the world he lived in as a child and the modern world. The latest case in point is the selection of Fife as one of the five pilot scheme areas which has been selected to provide free meals to some school pupils to improve childrens' health.
Carnegie notes that Fife Labour MSP Claire Baker has some doubts about this idea: "A FIFE MSP has questioned the worth of a free school meals project being piloted in the region. Labour Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Claire Baker cast doubts on plans for the pilot for school children in primaries one to three, suggesting universal free meals may not be the best way of tackling poverty or improving health among young people in Scotland."
Mr Carnegie can appreciate her arguments, but surely the whole point of having a pilot scheme is precisely to work that out? If nothing else it will mean that a lot of Fife kids will get one solid meal a day which they wouldn't otherwise have gotten. Is that really such a bad thing? And anyway aren't some of the arguments around free school meals the same ones that the Labour Party ignored in pressing ahead with pre-school vouchers for children several years ago?
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