Cost of Living: Healthy Start Scheme

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure, Mr Twigg, to serve under your chairmanship.

I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) for securing this debate and for the fantastic work that he is doing in raising awareness of this issue.

It has been a small but perfectly formed debate, with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) contributing to it. He always comes to Westminster Hall full of knowledge and willing to share the Northern Ireland perspective. We are always grateful for that, because we can learn a lot from different parts of the United Kingdom and it is really important that voices from different parts of the United Kingdom are raised in these debates, even though primarily these debates, when they relate to health, relate to health issues in England only. Nevertheless, we are the United Kingdom Parliament and it is really important to know what is happening in other parts of the country where there are devolved Governments.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) speaks so well on these issues. She obviously has her role as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on infant feeding and inequalities, and with the work that she does with that APPG she has got really stuck into the matters that we are considering today in real depth and detail. But she also brings a fresh perspective to these debates, as does the hon. Member for Strangford. We learn more from her about what is happening within Scotland through the Scottish Government, and it is important that across the United Kingdom Parliament we hear such examples and that we learn from best practice in different parts of the United Kingdom, so as to make better policy here in Westminster.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston was absolutely right to raise the issues that he did in this debate, because Healthy Start is an essential scheme that ensures that there is a nutritional safety net for pregnant women, parents and children under the age of four in low-income families. It allows parents—in theory —to buy healthy foods such as fruit and milk, as well as to access free vitamins. However, in the context of the cost of living crisis—so eloquently set out by my hon. Friend—families are undoubtedly finding it increasingly difficult to get what they need. Analysis from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service shows that, although the benefit itself has not changed since 2021, the price of infant formula—as we have heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central and from my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston—has increased substantially since then. The cheapest brands have increased in price by a phenomenal 22%, which is just unfathomable, in that short space of time.

As we have also heard, huge concerns have been raised about the uptake of the vouchers themselves, particularly following the switch from paper vouchers to a prepaid card system. Healthy Start scheme data for January 2023 shows that up to 37% of eligible families with young children are currently missing out on the scheme. That cannot be acceptable, either. A huge proportion of the people who desperately need that support—or they would not be eligible for it—are missing out.

In an answer on 13 February to a written question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston, the Minister responded:

“While there are no current plans to increase the value of Healthy Start, this is kept under continuous review.”

With that in mind, I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on whether there have been any recent discussions regarding the value of the scheme and whether it is still his Department’s position that no increase in value is forthcoming. If that is the case, can the Minister set out what assessment his Department has made of the impact of inflationary price rises on low-income households, and what reassurances he can provide to all Members here today that families are not being priced out of essential goods on this Government’s watch?

Similarly, I will press the Minister on the uptake of the scheme. The Government’s target for uptake is 75%, but as I mentioned earlier, we are currently sitting at about 63%. A quick trawl of written questions shows that the Minister has been responding to concerns raised by Members on this issue with a boilerplate response—namely, that the NHS Business Services Authority promotes the Healthy Start scheme through its digital channels and has created free tools to help stakeholders to promote the scheme locally. That answer suggests to me that the Government are not particularly concerned about missing their own target. That is not acceptable. I remind the Minister that there is very little point in setting a target if they are not going to do their utmost to meet it. We all know that the NHSBSA promotes this scheme, but something is clearly not working if uptake is as low as it is. What additional action is the Minister planning to take to increase uptake so that all families who are eligible are not just able to access the scheme but do access it?

It would be remiss of me if I did not raise the problem of child health inequalities, which are widening at an alarming rate. At our mission launch on Monday, Labour committed to a children’s health plan that would give every child a healthy start in life. That includes our pledge to establish fully-funded healthy breakfast clubs across England and restrict adverts for foods high in fat, sugar and salt. We would oversee the retrofitting of 19 million homes in England, to keep families warm. We would reform universal credit. And we would pass a clean air Act, to protect our children from the serious respiratory illnesses caused by pollution. It is an ambitious agenda that would proactively tackle child poverty and ensure families could afford to feed their children and keep them well. Over the last 13 years, the UK’s progress on infant and child mortality has stalled, and we now have much worse rates compared with other developed countries. We must see a concerted effort from the Minister to tackle that. More of the same will just not cut it. What exactly is the Government’s plan to meet the scale of the crisis in child poverty and ill health?

All children deserve to lead long, happy and healthy lives, irrespective of where they grow up and which part of the United Kingdom they live in. That means ensuring that in England the Healthy Start scheme works, and that we do everything we can to tackle child poverty across the country. I strongly urge the Minister to better engage with campaigners on the issue and work proactively with Members on all sides of the House to ensure that the Healthy Start scheme is fit for purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O'Brien]

If I can just complete the thought, the total cost of living support that the Government have provided is worth more than £94 billion across 2022-23 and 2023-24. That is, on average, more than £3,300 per UK household. It is one of the most generous support packages for the cost of living anywhere in Europe.

I turn to the critical role that the Healthy Start scheme plays in supporting hundreds of thousands of lower-income families across the country. Eating a healthy, balanced diet, in line with “The Eatwell Guide”, can help to prevent diet-related disease. It ensures that we get the right energy and nutrients needed for good health and to maintain a healthy weight throughout life. The Healthy Start scheme is one way that the Government continue to target nutritional support at the families who need it most, which is increasingly important in view of the cost of living.

Healthy Start is a passported benefit, one of a range of additional sources of help and support that the Government provide to families on benefits and tax credits. It is a statutory scheme that helps to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies and young children under four from lower-income households. Women who are at least 10 weeks pregnant and families with a child under four years old are eligible for the scheme if they claim: income support; income-based jobseeker’s allowance; child tax credit, if they have an annual family income of £16,190 or less; universal credit, if they have a family take-home pay of £408 or less a month; or pension credit. Pregnant women on income-related employment and support allowance are also eligible for the scheme.

Anyone under 18 who is pregnant is eligible for Healthy Start, regardless of whether they receive benefits. Following the birth of their child, they must meet the benefit criteria to continue receiving Healthy Start. The scheme offers financial support towards buying fresh, frozen or tinned fruit and vegetables, fresh, dried and tinned pulses, plain cow’s milk and infant formula. Beneficiaries are also eligible for free Healthy Start vitamins.

In April 2021, as has been mentioned, we increased the value of Healthy Start by 37%, from £3.10 per week to £4.25 per week. Unlike the Scottish Government’s scheme, which is for the under-threes, Healthy Start is for the under-fours. Pregnant women and children aged over one and under four each receive £4.25 a week, and children aged under one each receive £8.50 a week—twice as much. For a family with a six-month-old and a three-year-old, that is £12.75 a week to help towards buying nutritious foods. That comes on top of the benefits and all the other measures, such as the increase in the national living wage, that I mentioned.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the Minister for rattling off the sums. To go back to the point that the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) made about the Healthy Start grant and why the Government chose not to uprate it, will he share with the House what the cost to the Exchequer would have been to uprate it? That must have been part of their deliberations as to why not to do it. What is the cost?

[Neil O'Brien]

We have chosen to spend over £3,300 per UK household, on average, on the cost of living support. Putting that into the schemes that are available and targeted at people with low incomes, and indeed at the entire population, is the choice that we have made. To reiterate my earlier point, and since the hon. Member says that I am rattling off the figures, it is worth stressing that we have invested £3,300 per household—a colossal sum of money. That is unprecedented. There has never been a cost of living intervention anywhere of that magnitude, so that must be an important part of the discussion about Healthy Start.