Schools: Food Nutrition Standards Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Schools: Food Nutrition Standards

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts
Thursday 11th February 2016

(8 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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The guidance is now provided by Public Health England.

Baroness Walmsley Portrait Baroness Walmsley (LD)
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The Government are undermining free school meals for up to key stage 1, which was a Liberal Democrat achievement in the coalition Government, by starving the programme of cash. Why are the Government going to remove the grants to small primary schools that enable them to deliver these hot meals to children? How will that help nutrition for those children for whom this is the only decent, nutritional meal they get in the whole day?

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right that we have paid an extra £33 million to small schools to enable them to engage in this programme. It was always intended as transitional funding to help schools put their service on a sustainable footing and we believe that that has been done.