Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

To go back to Feeding Britain, one of our researchers, Professor Greta Defeyter, did the first and only study of the numbers for councils, which has been referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, but also schools, in this regard. Food is always the squishy part of the sandwich; you cannot do anything about your rent or your electricity, so people always spend a little bit less on food. Both councils and schools are taking money from the schools’ budget, and it is getting smaller, and at the same time we are asking schools to produce breakfast. I do not quite know how this funding is going to work—

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I invite the noble Baroness to acknowledge that this Government, since they were elected, have committed £1 billion to school meals. It would be nice if she would mention that, as well as everything else, which I am sure we all agree about.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

Thank you—I acknowledge that more money is going in and absolutely acknowledge that there is an expansion of free school meals. I am only worried about the evidence that we have seen. Yesterday, we had a whole-day meeting of Feeding Britain, and I am afraid that a lot of the information that we heard is that this is not there yet. I hope that it filters down, because it is a very straightforward thing to do.

I have put a lot of things into the amendment, which is supported by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Suttie and Lady Walmsley, on what school standards should be. It is a good thing for the Government to aim at, and I hope that they will look favourably on the amendment.