Our children have had the MMR jab, says Brown's Cabinet friend

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Schools Secretary Ed Balls, who has three children with his wife, Communities Minister Yvette Cooper, sanctioned the release of the information in the week that officials revealed Britain is in the middle of the worst measles outbreak for 20 years.

In allowing the disclosure, Mr Balls - who was Mr Brown's right-hand man at the Treasury for nearly a decade - has broken ranks with Mr Blair's long-standing ban on Ministers saying whether their children have had the controversial vaccine.

Campaigners are now calling on the Prime Minister to declare publicly that his children, too, have had the MMR inoculation.

Take-up of the vaccine, which also protects against mumps and rubella, plummeted after Dr Andrew Wakefield published research in 1998 that claimed it was linked to autism and bowel problems.

Mr Blair - who has repeatedly refused to say whether his son, Leo, had the jab - was furious at the embarrassment caused to him in January 2001 when Ms Cooper told a newspaper that her daughter, Ellie, had received the inoculation.

He later slapped the ban on Ministers speaking about their personal decisions.

Since then, Mr Balls and Ms Cooper - who is also in the Cabinet - have had two more children reach vaccination age (there are two injections, one at 13 months and a booster between the ages of three and five).

Mr Balls' decision to lead by example follows a warning from the Health Protection Agency that the number of children suffering from measles has trebled in the past 11 weeks.

The HPA, concerned that even more children will be infected as the autumn term begins, has urged parents to add MMR to their back-to-school list.

After Dr Wakefield published his research in The Lancet, take-up of the vaccine fell to 80 per cent.

It has since recovered to 88 per cent, which is still short of the 95 per cent rate the HPA recommends.

The study is being scrutinised by medical watchdog the General Medical Council in a professional misconduct hearing involving Dr Wakefield and two of his co-authors.

Meanwhile, in a series of briefings timed to coincide with the start of the new term, Mr Balls announced he will write to every headteacher in the country to urge them to help deliver 'a world-class education for every child'.

The new term also sees the start of a ban on schools selling fizzy drinks, chocolates or sweets in vending machines.

From now on, pupils will have to choose from foods such as bagels, muffins and breadsticks.