Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Andrew Gwynne

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

17. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Andrew Gwynne

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is stating things very clearly. Does he believe that this Government will allow Lord Heseltine’s proactive approach to regenerate the regions?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I very much doubt it; we can but hope. There are some good ideas that build on the many regional initiatives that the last Labour Government left in place in May 2010. The strategy almost reinvents the wheel, but I do not care who reinvents the wheel; the fact is that the wheel should never have been smashed up in the first place.

My Denton and Reddish constituency has been badly affected by unemployment. The figures that were released yesterday showed an increase in those claiming jobseeker’s allowance over the past 12 months. There are now 2,642 unemployed claimants in my constituency, which is 6% of the economically active population. The longer-term picture is far worse. The number of those claiming jobseeker’s allowance over the past 12 months has now gone up 32%. The figure has gone up 44% for young people and, staggeringly, for people over 25 claiming jobseeker’s allowance, the figure has gone up 70% in the past year.

School Food

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Andrew Gwynne

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely. It is often said that breakfast is the most important meal. For many children, and for a variety of reasons—perhaps the parents are in a rush to get to work, so have to drop them off at school earlier than the starting time; or because of the lack of a family income, they do not necessarily have the money to pay for a breakfast for their child at home—breakfast clubs have been a welcome initiative not just in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but across the country. Teachers in my constituency tell me that breakfast clubs make a huge difference to concentration—the very thing that my hon. Friend talked about in an earlier intervention. Rather than pupils sitting in a classroom with a rumbling stomach and with their mind on other things, they are now satisfied, have had their first meal of the day and can concentrate on being taught.

The Tameside part of my constituency has taken the free school meals initiative one step further. It is recognised that parents, and often those most in need, feel a real stigma in applying for free school meals. Despite savage Government cuts to Tameside council, providing nutritional and healthy school meals remains an important priority for the council. In fact, given the economic situation and changes to the benefit system, more families in the borough are falling below the recognised poverty line. That often impacts directly on the quality of the meals that children get to eat at home.

More than 8,000 children are currently in receipt of free school meals in Tameside. The council is in the process of radically simplifying how the parents of children entitled to a free school meal can apply for the benefit. Three years ago, the council was the first in the country to introduce a fully online application and eligibility checking system for free schools meals. The system replaced the old paper-based process and led to savings in back office administration and savings in time for the parent. Using the online system, 98% of applications for free school meals made before 11 o’clock in the morning were approved and the child given a free meal the same lunchtime. The old paper process took a week to administer.

Tameside council now wants to improve the system further and, this September, will begin systematically contacting every family in the borough that is eligible but not yet claiming a free school meal and offering them that option for their children. More than 500 families are entitled to a free school meal for their child but are not yet claiming and, in the vast majority of cases, those are families living in the most deprived communities and on the lowest household incomes.

Another improvement to the free school meals process is being introduced. In future, entitlement to free school meals will remain in place for the duration of the time that the child is in school, until they are 16 years old, unless the parents’ circumstances change, in which case the entitlement will cease automatically. That means not having regular renewals, which take time to administer and are inconvenient for the parents. The council will use the information that it already holds to ensure that, when family circumstances change whether someone is entitled to a free school meal, it will automatically respond appropriately and contact the family to let them know.

Tameside free school meals are among the best quality in the country, with the primary school catering service retaining the Hospitality Assured quality award for the eighth successive year. I have to say that school meals were not bad back in 1982, when Mrs Pomfret cooked them. Anyone who knows me well knows my love of food, and I probably owe a great debt to Mrs Pomfret for that as well.

The greatest advocates for the free school meals programme are the children. It encourages children to eat healthily and to develop social skills. Children like being able to sit down with their friends and teachers to have their lunch. We have also heard about the importance of the socialising and behavioural gains in schools when more children eat lunch together. Children learn to converse and to look out for one another, as well as courtesy and table manners. Importantly, children who are having lunch in school are not hanging around the takeaway at the end of the road—something of particular significance for secondary schools.

We can do other things as well. Initiatives such as the breakfast clubs mentioned by my hon. Friend can make a huge difference. They help with children’s concentration and break down some of the barriers in schools.

I have further concerns about nutritional standards in schools. In a written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice), a Minister—not the Minister present today—confirmed that the new academies and free schools will not have to abide by the regulations brought in by the previous Labour Government, thus the food that they provide will not need to be of a high standard. I am, frankly, appalled. Another concern is that Ofsted will no longer be required to ensure that nutritional standards in schools still under local authority control are adhered to, which can only have a negative impact on nutritional standards in our schools.

It is also important to consider school lunches in the context of the broader curriculum. The previous Labour Government announced in 2008 that, by the start of 2011, every 11 to 14-year-old would have 12 hours of compulsory practical cookery lessons, with a £2.5 million fund to provide fresh ingredients for free school meals and to support schools to provide appropriate facilities and to recruit and train teachers. However, the commitment to have 12 hours of food and cookery lessons to start in September 2011 was scrapped by the coalition Government, and the future of food education in the key stage 3 curriculum is in doubt, given the Government’s review of the primary and secondary curriculum and the continued lack of commitment from Ministers. Even the Government’s own Back Benchers—some 20 or so Conservatives and Liberal Democrats—have signed early-day motion 1816, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and calls for

“the Department for Education to guarantee provision for every secondary school pupil to receive at least 24 hours of practical cooking lessons at Key Stage 3 in its review of the National Curriculum.”

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate at such an appropriate time. I agree that young people need to be given the skills to prepare food and meals adequately and effectively. Does he agree that one of the effects of the national curriculum, when it was brought in under Mrs Thatcher’s Government, was the destruction of food education to the level of, basically, making pizza boxes, thus fuelling the disposable food culture, which has led to the obesity that we now see? It is time that we got back to giving people good home cooking skills, which can take them through their lives effectively.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I agree absolutely. When I was a pupil not at Russell Scott primary school but at Egerton Park community high school in Denton—during the Government of the noble Baroness Thatcher—we did indeed make pizza in home economics. Those lessons were probably the only opportunity that a lot of my school colleagues had to cook. I was more fortunate because my mum and my gran, from an early age, taught me a lot of the cooking skills that I have today. I make a superb Victoria sponge cake, thanks to my gran, who was the best baker in the world, and my custard cream biscuits are to die for—perhaps, Mr Dobbin, I shall bring some in after the recess and we can all share them. It is absolutely important that children learn how to cook, not only cakes and biscuits but meals—my Scotch broth isn’t bad either, I have to say.