Healthy Start Scheme

Debate between Ian Byrne and Kate Green

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered access to the Healthy Start scheme.

It is a pleasure to introduce the debate and to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees. I start by praising Healthy Start. The scheme provides support to expectant mothers who are more than 10 weeks pregnant, and to parents and care-givers who are responsible for at least one child under the age of four. Healthy Start vouchers, which have a value of up to £4.25 a week, or £8.50 a week for those with a child under one, entitle parents in receipt of certain social security benefits to fruit and vegetables, cows’ milk, infant formula and pulses. The vouchers also enable mothers to access vitamins from pregnancy until their child reaches the age of one, and enable children to access them from birth until the age of four. Originally, the scheme used paper vouchers, but since September 2021, families who were already enrolled on the Healthy Start scheme have been moved on to prepaid cards. Since the end of March 2022, prepaid cards have entirely replaced the paper vouchers.

Healthy Start has an important role to play in helping to ensure that mothers and young children have a nutritious diet. It is effective: research has found that participating families increase their spend on fruit and vegetables. The Minister will understand how crucial a healthy diet is for pregnant and new mothers, babies and young children. The British Medical Association has highlighted the effects of poor nutrition during pregnancy: adverse health and social outcomes, premature birth, low birth weight, shorter life expectancy and a higher risk of death in the first year of a child’s life.

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this incredibly important debate; I know the work that she has done on the issue. A report from Feeding Liverpool, published today, has found that thousands in our city who are eligible for Healthy Start are missing out. In 2021, an estimated £758,521 went unclaimed, rather than on giving children and those who are pregnant in Liverpool access to good food, milk and vitamins. That is a huge loss for families who are struggling to cover the rising cost of living in a city where one in three is now food insecure. It will have a huge health impact; we know how important nutrition is for children in the early years. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must urgently review and extend the eligibility threshold for Healthy Start, to enable more families to benefit from the scheme, and that the Government must invest in a national Healthy Start communications campaign to increase awareness and uptake?

[Kate Green]

It is a pleasure to respond to my hon. Friend’s question. He has done excellent work as part of his “Right to Food” campaign, and he raises a number of issues, including take-up, the generosity of the scheme and the importance of adequate nutrition, that I will come back to in my speech.

My hon. Friend will know that child food poverty continues to stunt children’s development as they grow up, and that overstretched family budgets, which mean that mothers go without in order to feed their children, are harmful to maternal health, increase maternal stress and are especially dangerous if women are breastfeeding—or, indeed, may prevent them from doing so. The Minister will share our concern that a new YouGov survey commissioned by Kellogg’s, which will be released next week—I appreciate that she has not had a chance to see it yet—has found that 66% of low-income families say that accessing Government benefits is complicated, and 53% are not confident that they are aware of all the benefits available to them. At the same time, 80% of parents on low incomes say that the rising cost of goods has impacted their ability to pay for essential items, and more than one in seven says that their children are worried about the situation.