But is it really that important for children to be able to have nut products during school hours? As far as I can tell the restrictions here are generally in primary schools i.e. aged between 4 and 11, so those kids aren't really old enough to really understand every possible issue with their diet and the diet of others where transfer can come from.

I wonder if those who are arguing that its stupid would feel the same way if their child had a serious allergy? Would they take the view that the importance of other people's children being able to eat a PB&J sandwich was sufficiently high to mean that if their child was to come into contact and suffered a severe and fatal reaction, that that would just be the way the cookie crumbled?

As far as epipens go my wife works at a school where one of the teaching assistants has a wide range of serious allergies, there are also kids with nut allergies and bee sting allergies. The school generally has 3 epipens however the teaching assistant had 4 "episodes" in 2 weeks so they ended up "out of stock" of them and were awaiting replacements when the 4th episode happened, thankfully the ambulance was there in 5 minutes.

Also only a handful of staff are trained to use them after all they are teachers, assistants, dinner ladies and cleaners/caretakers not doctors and nurses. It tends to be the teacher and the assistant of the class with the pupil that has the allergy but of course its not necessarily going to be in class that they have the contact.