asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children in the Ormskirk constituency are in receipt of (a) free school meals and (b) free school transport.

My Department does not collect statistics relating to school meals on a parliamentary constituency basis. For the Lancashire education authority as a whole the number of children in receipt of free school meals on a day in October 1978, the latest date for which reliable figures are available, was 33,427 or 14·5 per cent. of the pupils in attendance. Details of children in receipt of free school transport are not collected by my Department.