Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I have Amendments 183D, 186A and 187A in this group. I am delighted that the Bill will deliver on Labour’s manifesto commitment to offer universal breakfast clubs for all primary-age children, which will be a significant step towards ending morning hunger in schools across England. But there is a concern that the policy appears to be designed solely for mainstream pupils and, as a result, risks failing to meet the needs of those with special educational needs and disabilities. My amendments would make school breakfast provision more accessible to SEND pupils and create a more individualised approach to the provision.

Although most pupils with SEND are in mainstream education, special provision is vital for many children and young people across the country, for whom there are different barriers to accessing education, which need to be acknowledged and supported by government. The format in the Bill for universal free breakfasts applies only to primary-age pupils, which would mean excluding secondary-age pupils in special schools from breakfast provision. That is inequitable and, within those schools, ultimately unworkable. Special schools are more likely than mainstream schools to be all-through settings, where children can be taught based on need rather than age. My Amendments 183D and 186A would therefore extend the school breakfast provisions in the Bill to include secondary-age pupils in special schools.

Many of these children also access school transport funding, and it is vital that schools and local authorities work with families to create flexible transport approaches, so that anyone wanting to access breakfast clubs is then enabled to. Additionally, some children with SEND access one-to-one support during the school day. This support is a vital key in unlocking the education system to these young people. Without funding for this support being extended to breakfast clubs, they face the prospect of being locked out. For that reason, I support Amendment 186 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, which would ensure that breakfast clubs are accessible for all pupils with SEND.

Breakfast clubs need to be accessible, but they should be able to deliver a mixed-model approach to breakfast provision. That means being delivered in the classroom or in nurture groups, as opposed to being available only in the normal dining area. Breakfast clubs are harder to access for pupils with SEND, which is why, in special school provision, only 16% of schools partnering with the charity Magic Breakfast operate a breakfast club without another style of school breakfast being delivered as well. I was privileged to witness that at first hand when I visited Eko Pathways school in East Ham recently. More than just instructive, it was an absolute joy to see the children so enthusiastically engaging in the breakfast club. I was struck by the way in which some of them, after queuing for their food, then took it to their classroom and began to tuck in as the lesson began. I accept that that would not be appropriate for mainstream pupils, but it was clearly an important part of making the delivery of breakfast at Eko Pathways school so effective in preparing pupils for their lessons each day. For that reason, I am happy to signal my support for Amendment 187 in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister.

I turn to my Amendment 187A, which calls for the Secretary of State to gather and then publish detailed information on the state of breakfast club provision in schools. Of course, the Department for Education will monitor the overall uptake levels of school breakfast provision, which is the key metric in understanding how far-reaching the impact of the policy is proving to be. I believe that the DfE should gather representative data on the characteristics of those receiving breakfast in schools, such as eligibility for free school meals, eligibility for the pupil premium and inclusion on the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index, which has been referred to in previous groups today. That list is not exclusive, but these are the measures that include children and young people most at risk of morning hunger.

I believe the DfE should also consider collecting what is known as satisfaction data from pupils, teachers and caregivers. Without underlying metrics such as satisfaction, it is difficult to improve and augment the policy to increase its reach. Finally, impact measurements should be considered. These can include measuring positive effects on attendance, behaviour and health and well-being, as well, of course, as educational achievement further down the line. The charity Magic Breakfast collects data in relation to these, through both school surveys and academic studies. I hope my noble friend will agree that the Government should consider a balance of such methods to ensure robust data collection. I suspect she may say in her response that this is not required in the Bill, and I would accept that if she would also give a commitment that the data will be collected along the lines that I have suggested.

However, outside of the legislative structure, the Government are showing a commitment to developing better evaluation of policy. The Evaluation Task Force says that it drives

“continuous improvements in the way government programmes are evaluated in order to inform decisions”.

Including data collection and publication in the Bill would be a strong indicator of the Government’s commitment to evaluation.

The risk of not collecting this data is shown by the Welsh Government example. I refer to Amendment 187B in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, regarding impact assessment. I believe that six months is too short a timescale for meaningful assessments to be made. To some extent, the same might be said of Amendment 190 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Cass, but a period of 12 months would at least allow a full school year to be assessed.

Data collection is essential. Primary school free breakfast provision has been available in Wales since 2007, but the Welsh Government do not publish, nor seemingly even record, significant data on the effectiveness of their policy. That might explain why there have been no substantial changes to that policy, which has been in place for some 18 years.

In 2022, Wales was included in Magic Breakfast’s Hidden Hunger report, which found that, despite the legislation being intended to reach all primary schools in Wales, 85% of disadvantaged pupils were not reached by the provision. In another 2022 report, the Child Poverty Action Group and Parentkind noted that school breakfast clubs in Wales were

“not being made available to all families, despite a universal free primary breakfast offer”.

Wales was a leader in school breakfast provision, but a lack of monitoring risks the policy falling behind. Robust data collection being mandated by the Bill could avoid the risk of England falling to the same eventuality.

Lastly, I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, is not in his place to speak to his Amendment 184, which seeks to ensure that the Government underwrite the cost of providing breakfast clubs. Although it is not appropriate for that to be in the Bill, I sympathise with the noble Lord’s point. Indeed, this point was also made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Bennett, in their contributions. I was of course pleased to see the rollout in April of the first 750 schools providing free breakfasts for almost 200,000 pupils, but some schools have either not put themselves forward to participate or, in a few cases, have even withdrawn, citing financial reasons.

We all want the breakfast club provisions to be in place the length and breadth of the country, and eventually that will happen. I hope my noble friend the Minister will have something to say on the question of schools having their costs covered to ensure that the rollout can be completed as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 175, 190 and 194. The recent Food, Diet and Obesity Committee special inquiry, very ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, was a wake-up call for all of us who served on it. We were shocked by the evidence from parents, campaigners, academics and others about the quality of food in schools. Our recommendations were powerful but are, sadly, unimplemented to date. However, there were bright spots, including Chefs in Schools, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, which showed how good food can be delivered at very little extra cost.

The Government’s announcement that they want a major shift to prevention in healthcare is welcome, but they need to follow through with children’s nutrition if they are serious about that. Frontier Economics has estimated that overweight and obesity costs the UK economy £98 billion every year. Much of that is due to increased spending on the NHS—money that is then denied to other departments.

We have an obesity crisis—especially childhood obesity—in the UK. One in five children is already overweight or obese when they start primary school. That rises to one in four among the most deprived 20% of the population, who are most likely to be receiving free school meals. We also have increasing rates of tooth decay in children, and type 2 diabetes. Before 2000, it was unheard of for children to get type 2 diabetes. Many of the poorest children require a strong nutritional safety net to ensure that they are well fed and well nourished as they grow.

Amendment 175 relates to the holiday activities and food programme. The introduction of that programme was a proud achievement of the previous Government. It does what it says on the tin, providing activities and meals to children on low incomes during the summer holidays at a time when they are not able to access free school meals, which many rely on. However, unlike free school meals, the scheme has no basis in legislation; this amendment would change that.