Children: Rights and Well-being

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, there is a broad range of work across government that promotes children’s rights and well-being, which is set out in the report that we provided to the UN in November last year at the conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the UNCRC, as the noble Baroness mentioned. The report summarises the work of 14 government departments. My department has strong working relationships with other departments on children’s rights. I am confident that these will continue in the run-up to the next reporting cycle in 2021.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of Feeding Britain. We recently saw new and disturbing academic research. Children in Britain who are on free school meals are allocated £2.20 or £2.30, depending on where the school is. It has come to light that councils are now so broke because of the cuts that they are taking around 50p of that allocation for their needs. When the money then gets to the school, it is also so broke because of budget cuts that it nicks another 50p. This is not malice but just need. In too many instances now, the actual value of the food that we are serving to our hungry, needy kids—as is their right—is 82p. Can the Government assure us that they will look into these figures and ring-fence that amount? Food is always the bit that gets cut, either by a hungry mother or, in this case, a hungry council.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I am certainly happy to look into the figures that the noble Baroness refers to. If she has any example of a local authority where she feels that excessive amounts are being top-sliced away from food provision, I would be interested to hear of it. I have not seen examples of that myself.

National School Breakfast Programme

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I completely agree with the noble Lord on the importance of a healthy breakfast for children—there is masses of evidence to support the benefits. It improves concentration and provides nutrition, which does not always happen at home. I agree with that. We are reviewing the future of the programme. We had our spending settlement letter and announcement from the Chancellor only yesterday. We want to ensure that we can extend this programme in an effective way. We have targeted it initially in the opportunity areas, which, as noble Lords will know, are some of the areas of greatest deprivation. We want to create a system that is sustainable into the long term.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

No one has any doubt about the importance of breakfast and yet, at the moment, apart from the scheme mentioned by my noble friend Lord Curry, almost all these breakfasts are being provided by charities such as Magic Breakfast. However, even Magic Breakfast reckons that 1.8 million children go to school hungry every morning. Surely this matter should not be haphazardly funded by the sugar tax or by desperate mothers and charities such as Magic Breakfast. Does the Minister agree that this should be a responsibility of the Department for Education and of all of us because we know how fundamentally important it is?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Baroness makes important points. There is both a macro and a micro issue here. For example, today I looked at the LIFFE futures price for wheat: it is £130 a tonne. When I last worked on my father’s farm in 1978 it was about £100 a tonne. Food has never been cheaper. We have had a revolution in the provision of food in this country and, indeed, in the western world. We need to understand why these families are struggling to produce meals at home. A great deal of that centres around education. I appeared before a Select Committee yesterday on holiday hunger and we need to learn a lot more about this. We have introduced the infant free school meals in the past couple of years. That programme is feeding 1.5 million children and has an 85% take-up.

Schools: Free School Meals

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to maintain appropriate standards in the delivery of free school meals.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)]

My Lords, this Government want pupils to be healthy and well nourished. It is important that all pupils have access to healthy and nutritious meals at school, including those eligible for free school meals. We encourage a balanced diet and healthy life choices through school funding legislation and guidance. Our school food standards mean that the food children eat at school is healthy and foods high in fat, salt and sugar are restricted.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. I wish it were entirely true. Through the Children’s Future Food Inquiry, I have spoken directly to children who live in poverty and for whom these meals are a lifeline. The £2.30 a day allowance is simply not enough, unless the school is very creative, to provide daily meals and snacks. I have heard from children who were charged up to £2 for half a small pizza. In some schools, where the water fountains are broken, they were paying 90p for a bottle of water. We spend £458 million a year on school meals, but no monitoring system is in place in England and standards are very uneven. When free school meals were extended under the coalition, a post was created to monitor them, but that person was let go after a year. Do the Government not agree that this is an extremely short-sighted approach and that the post should be reinstated immediately?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, I will certainly take the noble Baroness’s suggestion back to the department for consideration. It is, however, a statutory requirement that all state schools provide free drinking water to their pupils. If there is any evidence of schools not delivering that, I would be interested to hear it.

Universal Credit: Free School Meals

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Thursday 21st February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the Government should support people in the most vulnerable state. That is why we used the same statistics as the DWP, which produces annual estimates and said that the rate of material deprivation for children has never been lower than the current figure of 11%.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government consider rolling out the free school meals programme more widely in the next few months as we go through Brexit? Indications suggest that food prices will rise, rather than go down. There are categories of children whose parents are in dire poverty but they do not receive free school meals. All children of parents living here under immigrant status do not get free school meals either. For families in poverty, they are a true lifeline. Will the Government think about rolling them out, at least for the summer term while some of this settles down?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it might be worth pointing out this week’s ONS statistics, which show a rather more positive figure on employment: 32.6 million people in this country are now employed. That is 167,000 more than between July and September 2018, and 440,000 more than a year ago. We take child poverty very seriously. We also encourage schools, through the use of the pupil premium, to encourage additional recruitment to the programme.

Schools: Mental Health Support

Debate between Baroness Boycott and Lord Agnew of Oulton

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, we are introducing mental health training as part of teacher training. We are beginning a voluntary scheme in September next year, and that will become a compulsory part of teacher training programmes. Returning to the earlier point about funding, we aim to add another 8,000 mental health professionals to the system over the next few years.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, may I add another element to this vital debate? It is about all schools having a school garden. I shall quote from a recent report by the King’s Fund:

“The mental health benefits of gardening are broad and diverse. Studies have shown significant reductions in depression and anxiety”,


and “improved social functioning”. This costs unbelievably little, and lessons can be based around it. In my time running the London Food Board, I put many gardens into London schools, and the effects were dramatic. The cost is as little as 50 quid—with a bit of volunteering—and it has a permanent, long-term effect.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I strongly support the noble Baroness’s comments on children’s exposure to outdoor activities. There is a very good trust, the Country Trust, which takes children on to farms in the same spirit as just mentioned. I think this is enormously important. I am the Minister responsible for the disposal of land in schools, and I intervene weekly to ensure that land used for such outdoor pursuits is not disposed of.