Free School Meals: Food Parcels

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the Government are awaiting the second part of the national food strategy, and we have said that we will respond with a White Paper within six weeks of that strategy being published. We have expanded the entitlement to free school meals; at the moment, 1.4 million children receive free school meals. We have given the undertaking that any family that moves from legacy benefits on to universal credit will have an entitlement to free school meals. So we are meeting the needs of children. In addition to that, there are the holiday activity clubs that we have expanded, as of the Easter holidays of this year. So we are looking to meet the needs of those in our society who need food.

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con) [V]]

My Lords, can my noble friend confirm how this affects food waste? Am I right in understanding that much of this food, which of course is designed for lunches only, had been ordered or bought well in advance?

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is correct. One key reason why the Government gave schools the choice was that they were aware of the operation of their own school catering staff—but also, certain suppliers had already purchased food and they had already paid for it so, obviously, moving to a voucher system immediately could have resulted in food waste. Giving the flexibility to schools in terms of local vouchers enables them to use local suppliers and to support their local economy.