A MUM of two says she is furious that a new scheme, which panders to the breast milk mafia', means she can no longer buy reduced price milk powder.

Kate Nicholl, from Fearnhead, is so incensed by the change, which came into effect earlier this year that she has written to her MP Helen Jones.

But Kate, aged 41, who is mum to nine-month old Sam and six- year-old Alex says she is not satisfied by the response she received.

She said: "If I don't want to breastfeed that is my personal choice. I was told by my health visitor that the new legislation would come into effect on April 1 and as of then I wouldn't be able to buy reduced price milk powder.

"The response from my MP is that the formula is no longer routinely provided by NHS child health clinics because part of the aim of the new scheme is to encourage breastfeeding.

"When I could buy the formula from the clinic I was paying around £5, since it stopped I've paid up to £7.99. So basically, because it's my personal choice not to breastfeed I'm being penalised by having to pay more. I won't be bullied into how I choose to feed my child.

"The annoying thing is that if I was receiving benefits I'd get tokens to get the milk powder free."

In her response to Mrs Nicholl, Helen Jones, MP for Warrington North, explains that in the past clinics had been able to buy low cost bulk supplies of the powder under the Welfare Food Scheme, providing tokens for milk and formula.

In October 2002 the Department of Health launched a public consultation to reform the scheme. The aim of the consultation was to better meet the nutritional needs of women and children and to provide greater support for breastfeeding and parenting.

The overall views of those who responded demonstrated strong support for the need for reform and the scheme has now been replaced by Healthy Start' which still provides some mothers in qualifying groups with babies under the age of one with tokens.