My Lords, at this late hour, I simply want to express my support for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and Amendments 154 and 155 in his name by making three simple points. First, we are learning all the time about the importance of nutrition and health. We are also understanding increasingly how poor nutrition can have a devastating effect on recovery and health inequality. It is therefore remarkable that in both hospitals and, more particularly, care homes we have no standards or training for the people involved in the preparation and delivery of food. That is a serious omission.
Therefore, it is time for us to move away from the traditional way in which care catering has developed, which is by scandal and omission, turning it round into a positive by developing new standards of training. We also need to try to get particularly teachers in colleges to get young people to understand that catering in care settings is far more complex then catering in restaurants. Within the NHS we have the opportunity to drive some world-beating standards on nutrition and care, and that is all that we are asking for by asking for this framework and these amendments.