Food Banks

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

I agree with the noble Baroness: everyone should have access to decent, healthy food. Tackling disadvantage will always be a priority for this Government. We welcome the new report from the Children’s Future Food Inquiry. Employment is at a record high and wages are outstripping inflation, but we know that there is more to do to ensure that everyone has access to nutritious, healthy food. We have already taken steps to tackle food inequality by providing free school meals and our Healthy Start vouchers. We are also investing up to £26 million in school breakfast clubs and £9 million to provide meals and activities for thousands of disadvantaged children during the summer holidays.

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of recent reports of schools and teachers buying food, clothes and basic essentials to enable children to come to school, and that children feel ashamed because they cannot afford them? Many people, including charities, attribute this to the benefits cap. What plans do the Government have to address this and to ensure that children’s education is not put at risk through poverty?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I think it is fair to say that I answered that question to some degree in a previous answer. We are working hard with schools and injecting significant funds to ensure that children are properly fed, if not at home then by breakfast clubs, and through the school holidays. There is much more that we have been doing to ensure that families are not worse off; indeed, we have the most generous benefits for families of all the G7 countries. We recognise that there is more we can do but I have to keep saying: remember, we have made significant changes and increases in people’s income through increasing work allowances and so on. However, some of this will not yet have come through to be felt on the ground. We are still rolling out some of the big changes to universal credit.