Child Food Poverty

Edward Timpson Excerpts

Friday 16th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) and Kidsgrove on securing this debate. We have not met, but we are quite close neighbours and it is good to have another representative from our area speaking so passionately about an extremely important subject, which she rightly emphasised should exercise all our minds. We should be working as closely together as we possibly can to come up with the right solutions to all the problems society can throw at us, such as those she raises in this debate.

I think we can all agree that no child should go hungry. Like the hon. Lady, I have seen, both in my personal and professional life before politics, what can happen to children when that takes place, so I am in no doubt about the need for good nutrition and the vital role it plays in children’s development and health.

The Government want to give every child, regardless of background, the very best start in life. That approach is at the heart of our reforms to school meals. We have made real progress towards ensuring that all children are eating good, healthy food, which in turn will help them to concentrate in the classroom and support the healthy lifestyle we want to see.

The hon. Lady rightly pointed out that there is some developing research in this area, but considering how long this has been discussed—over many decades—there is still a paucity of research and that will need to be addressed so we can better understand the potential links between nutrition and educational attainment. I want to start by setting out the work being done by my Department to tackle this issue and we will then talk a little more widely about Government action in this area.

We published the school food plan, developed by independent food experts drawing on the views of teachers, cooks, caterers, nutritionists, parents, charities and volunteers. This has led to a practical action plan that is increasing the quality and take-up of school meals—which has been a long-standing problem—developing a whole-school food culture and exciting children about good food and cooking so that they can lead healthy lives.

As part of that plan, we have revised the school food standards so that they are easier for schools to understand and implement. They allow school cooks more creative freedom to adapt to the preferences of the children at their school, source seasonal or local food, take advantage of price fluctuations, or create dishes that suit their particular talents. Importantly, parents will more easily be able to know if the food served to their children meets the standards. Most crucially, they restrict unhealthy foods to ensure our children eat well.

I took the time to read the Kellogg’s report and it was interesting. One point it made is that although more money is being spent on food, the nutritional value is going down by virtue of the poor choices being made by parents for their children. We also need to tackle that, so children are eating nutritious meals.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for giving way; that is a convention not always observed in these debates. What is his view on the growing numbers of machines selling junk food? The name escapes me—

[Catherine West]

Thank you. The number of vending machines in schools and hospitals seems to be growing. What is the Minister’s view on that?

[Edward Timpson]

We have set out in the school food plan a clear objective to make as much home-grown nutritious food available to children as possible. I am not going to gainsay the position of other Ministers in the Department of Health and elsewhere who have responsibility for these areas, but we need to look carefully at the proliferation of vending machines to ensure that there is no exploitation going on and that they are not undermining the overall principle that we have set out in the school food plan and the school food standards.

We have also reformed the national curriculum to include new content on food, nutrition and healthy eating and on how to cook a whole repertoire of dishes. For the first time, learning about food is statutory for every pupil up to the age of 14. The school fruit and vegetable scheme provides a daily piece of fruit or a vegetable on school days to key stage 1 children—typically aged four to six—in primary schools and nurseries attached to eligible primary schools in England. We have also extended the right to free meals during term time to include disadvantaged students in further education as well as children from low income families in schools.

More widely, our ambition for disadvantaged pupils to be successful during their school years and to achieve the highest possible levels of educational attainment is at the centre of our education reform programme. That is why we are committed to raising the bar among disadvantaged pupils as part of pushing up standards for everyone, so that no pupil is left behind. This is built on the knowledge of how important educational attainment is for improving their life chances.

The Wolf report, which was commissioned by the last Government, showed that English and maths skills were vital for labour market entry and continued to have a significant impact on career progression and pay. That is why we are committed to ensuring that more poor pupils achieve excellent grades at GCSE, attend the very best universities or go on to an apprenticeship that will lead to their gaining skilled employment, so that every child, regardless of their background, has an education that allows them to realise their full potential. Our reforms are working. More young people have got into work in the last year in this country than in the rest of the EU put together, and there are more than 1 million more pupils in England in good or outstanding schools than there were in 2010, with the attainment gap narrowing in the process.

As I said earlier, it is not just the Department for Education that has a vested interest in ensuring that all children, irrespective of their background, are protected from or lifted out of a childhood spent in poverty, including food poverty. That is why this Government want to work to eliminate child poverty, as did the last Labour Government, and to improve the life chances of every child. Our new approach, set out in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, will incentivise the Government to focus on tackling the root causes of child poverty, not just the symptoms. Our new statutory life chances measures will drive continued clear action on work and education. This will make the biggest difference to disadvantaged children, now and in the future.

In reaching for that goal, we know that work is the best route out of poverty. Research shows us that around 75% of poor children living in families where both parents move into full employment leave poverty altogether. Economic growth and employment offer the best route to giving people a better future and to reducing poverty. As we have seen in the past year, we now have the fastest growth of any major advanced economy.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Thank you very much for giving way, Minister. I am grateful for your time and your commitment to this issue, now and previously. One of my concerns is that you have not talked about what happens during the school holidays. The Kellogg’s report is obviously incredibly important, but this is about the impact of malnutrition during the school holidays on children’s attainment when they come back to school. I agree with you that, traditionally, employment would be—

[Ruth Smeeth]

I apologise. I am still claiming new status.

Will the Minister please give us some clarification on what action we can now take to draw a line in the sand and work together to tackle the specific issue of holiday hunger?

[Edward Timpson]

The hon. Lady is right to challenge me to move on to that aspect of this debate, and I intend to do so, once I have set out the underlying principles that the Government have in order to tackle poverty at its source by bearing down on its root causes. They help us to start to pull together exactly how we should respond to any of the issues she has raised on what happens in the school holidays for some children.

Employment is up by more than 2 million since the 2010 election, and the number of children growing up in workless households is at a record low—it has decreased by 480,000 since 2010. Household incomes will be higher in 2015 than in 2010. In the summer Budget, the Government announced that a new national living wage of £7.20 an hour will be introduced, giving full-time low-paid workers an extra £20 a week when it is introduced in April. The hon. Lady rightly reminds us, however, that times are still tough for many families, and it would be wrong to deny that some deep-rooted problems leading to children being in food poverty need to be tackled. As the all-party group on hunger and food poverty has found, the reasons behind demands for emergency food assistance are complex and frequently overlapping. We need to understand better how we start to unravel that, so we can address it in the best way possible. The work of civil society and faith groups to support vulnerable people has been immensely impressive, and I would like to take this opportunity to recognise the valuable contribution of all those involved.

Perhaps the greatest frustration for all of us is that as a country we have enough food to feed us all—there is enough food to go around—and so it is wrong that anyone should go hungry at the same time as surplus food is going to waste. Food waste must be tackled—that has to be part of the solution—and surplus food must be redistributed. That is why the Government have taken action to ensure that more surplus food is redistributed to people before being put to any other use. The Waste and Resources Action Programme has published research, guiding principles and good practice case studies to help industry take action. Building further on that work, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Minister for Civil Society have brought together key players from retail, food manufacturing and redistribution organisations to agree new actions to further increase levels of food redistribution, so that people who need it can access it. A working group is driving that forward—to waste less and redistribute more.

[Matthew Pennycook]

rose—

[Edward Timpson]

I am sorry, but I am short of time and I have to keep going.

We are also taking action to help families with their food costs specifically, for example, through the Department of Health’s Healthy Start scheme, which provides nutritional support for pregnant women, new mothers and low income families throughout the UK. Healthy Start is helping half a million families buy milk, fruit and fresh and frozen vegetables. The hon. Lady also highlighted a number of other schemes going on up and down the country, and I have taken time to look at those. The National Housing Consortium, in particular, has been helping lead many of those initiatives. I welcome that work that is going on, and I would be happy to ensure that the Minister responsible has a chance to consider them as well, together with the other requests that the hon. Lady made towards the end of her speech, so that we can see this as a joint venture to tackle what we know to be a real part of pervading societal problems for far too long. Although I believe the work the Government are doing to tackle the root causes of poverty will help alleviate many of those issues, we still need to look carefully at how it affects different communities in different parts of the country, so that we can be more creative and innovative about how we respond to it, so that as few children as possible ever find themselves in that position in the future —we hope none will.

The Government have put in place a long-term plan for economic growth, to raise living standards for all, and that plan is working; we were the fastest-growing major advanced economy in 2014, wages are rising at the fastest rate in a decade, employment has risen by 2 million since 2010 and the number of children in workless families has fallen to a record low.

In schools, we have introduced measures that will ensure that children are offered more nutritious and appetising meals, which will improve their health and development. We know that we have 1 million more children being taught in good and outstanding schools, and we have raised the bar for achieving for all children no matter what their background, so that their performance will match and exceed that of their peers in the highest-performing countries across the world, giving them the best possible chance of securing rewarding further education and employment.

We should never dilute our determination to tackle child poverty in all its forms. I have set out a range of actions in this short debate. The Government are taking action to reduce poverty and to give children, wherever they live, a better and healthier future. As we see changes in our society, we need to ensure that we do not shy away from problems, complex as some of them may be, and that we are open about them. As someone who has seen what happens when things go horribly wrong and children have ended up in need, I am as determined as the hon. Lady to ensure that we as politicians lead on this issue and that many more children do not suffer the consequences of our doing nothing.

Question put and agreed to.