Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Walmsley]

161: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause—
“Automatic enrolment for Healthy Start scheme(1) The Secretary of State must, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, introduce a scheme to automatically enrol certain individuals for the purposes of the Healthy Start scheme.(2) For the purposes of this section, “certain individuals” means people who are eligible for the Healthy Start scheme on the basis of having a child under the age of 4.(3) The scheme must provide the means for individuals to opt out of enrolment for the Healthy Start scheme.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides for the auto-enrollment of certain individuals on to the Healthy Start scheme.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 190 in my name and one or two other amendments in this group. Amendment 161 would allow auto-enrolment of families entitled to the Healthy Start prepaid card. The Healthy Start scheme provides extra cash for families on certain benefits when the mother is more than 10-weeks pregnant or has a child under four years old. The card can be used to pay for milk, formula milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins. Families receive £4.25 per week for a pregnant woman and for each child aged one to four years old, and £8.50 for each baby under one year old—unless the Government have changed this in the last few days.

The value of the payment has not increased since April 2021, despite considerable food cost inflation since then; Scotland’s similar scheme has been uprated. Some supermarkets, such as Sainsbury’s, have topped up the card with an extra £2 a week, which has been shown to increase purchases of these healthy foods. Presumably as well as increasing footfall in the shop, those supermarkets understand the importance of this extra money to the health of a young family on benefits. Even though it is not enough, it certainly helps in light of the inequalities in diet and obesity among young children below school age. In 2022-23, 12.4% of four to five year-olds in the most deprived areas were already living with obesity—more than double the number in the least deprived areas. These payments are an important lever to address this inequality.

However, many eligible families do not know about their eligibility for this scheme and therefore suffer more food insecurity than they need to—I know one myself. The House of Lords Food, Diet and Obesity Committee last year heard that there are no current figures on uptake due to a “data issue”. That is just not good enough, because we know, anecdotally, that many families are missing out. The committee heard that the local authority in Blackpool was so concerned about it that it launched a programme to inform eligible families—on which I congratulate the local authority. It has now reached 80% by its calculation, which is much higher than other areas, but what about the other 20%? Its success indicates that there is a need for a national scheme.

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I hope that, given the time, despite me responding to several interventions, noble Lords will accept the assurances and explanations that I have given and feel able not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I have really enjoyed this debate, which has covered many aspects of the well-being of children, including good food and exercise and the effects they have on their health, learning and ability to socialise. I particularly enjoyed a phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, when he said he enjoyed seeing the children “tuck in”. I think all of us want to see children tucking in to healthy, tasty food.

I was a little disappointed by the Minister on Amendment 161. I had hoped that she would be able to tell me how she can do it, rather than why she cannot, but I think I shall have to be satisfied for the time being. I do not know whether the Minister is aware that her colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, responded to the recommendations of the Food, Diet and Obesity Committee, and I expressed disappointment that all she was able to tell me was that she was going to implement some of the things that the previous Government had already promised, but she did promise that there would be more. I said that I was really encouraged by that, and I hope that the Minister took on board that I said earlier, in terms, that I very much welcomed the widening of eligibility for free school meals and the commitment to reviewing school food standards, which Minister Morgan promised me last November. That is very good indeed. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, that I welcome every extra penny that goes to providing children with more good food.

My noble friend mentioned Tony Blair. I do not know if the Minister is aware that a few months ago, Henry Dimbleby and Dolly van Tulleken produced a report called Nourishing Britain, in which they interviewed previous Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State for Health and other appropriate Ministers and asked them what they wished they had done. Most of them said that they wished they had done more. Tony Blair said that his advice to a Government is to be bold and act fast. While welcoming what the Government are already doing, I say to them—and I hope I will not be blamed for saying this: be bolder and act faster. I hope that the Minister will recognise that, although the Government have taken some important steps forward, there are still a number of places in which to do even better. With that, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 161.

Amendment 161 withdrawn.