Free School Meals: Food Parcels

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Russell of Liverpool) (CB)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. The noble Lord is muted.

[Lord Greaves (LD) [V]]

Well, I unmuted myself, as agreed, and somebody muted me again, so I have unmuted again. It needs sorting out.

My Lords, there does not appear to be a major problem in Lancashire, because Lancashire County Council—and I congratulate it on this—set up a county-wide voucher scheme for schools when the schools closed again, after the first day. If Lancashire could do this on a county-wide basis, why could the Government not do it straightaway nationally?

[Baroness Berridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I applaud the example that the noble Lord has given, and I have outlined why it is important that these three options are open to schools. As I have said, schools can re-register this week for the national voucher system and reactivate their accounts, and vouchers will be redeemable and available from Monday. Also, of course, where there is a free school meal entitlement for those who also qualify for the breakfast club, that food should also be provided. This has been stood up as soon as we can. In the last phase of the pandemic we distributed more than £380 million through a national voucher scheme. Noble Lords made it clear that there were downsides to that, because it meant that the business was given only to supermarkets. So it is important that we use the food and do food parcels, local vouchers and national vouchers.