Children’s Future Food Report

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) for securing this very important debate, and for his excellent and passionate speech. I am thrilled to be following my very good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth). It has been an honour to work with her over the last few years on an issue that we are both so very passionate about. I remember that when I met her, as a brand-new MP, she said she would focus on this issue more than on any other, and she has been true to her word. I know the children in her constituency are all the better for it, as are those across the country, because she is not just doing this for the children in her constituency, but fighting for all children.

I, too, want to thank the young people who participated in this inquiry, and I congratulate them on doing so. We have heard some moving testimonies about what those children told us. Without their hard work, bravery and determination, we would not have had such a groundbreaking report; it would just have been another report written about children by adults. Listening to those young food ambassadors was eye-opening—and eye-watering—for everyone, including those of us who think we are more seasoned to some of these issues. Finally, I thank everyone involved in the inquiry, with special thanks to the Food Foundation, and to Lindsay Graham, whose idea was the genesis of the inquiry.

As co-chair of the children’s future food inquiry—along with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), who is not in her place, sadly—I have spoken many times about the shocking things that we heard from the food ambassadors about their experiences of hunger and food insecurity. I am pleased that other Members have shared some of those examples in detail. Today, I will focus on issues that I did not mention when we had the Westminster Hall debate on this issue last month, so I will mainly focus on holiday hunger and breakfast clubs.

First, I would like to hold the Minister to account on some of the things he said in response to that debate. [Interruption.] I think he is a little bit distracted, so perhaps I should wait until he is listening, so he knows what I am going to ask him. Minister, hello! [Interruption.] Wonderful. I know the Minister was distracted by his Whip, but I will be asking him some direct questions, and it would not be fair on him if I did not give him a chance to listen to those questions. I was referring to the debate we had in Westminster Hall, to which he responded, and I am going to reiterate some of those responses and ask him to comment on them further.

As hon. Members will know, the young food ambassadors put together the #Right2Food charter, to outline their demands on Government, and the committee made up of MPs, peers and charities calls on the Government to establish an independent food watchdog that will examine the cost of the policies in the charter. During the Westminster Hall debate on this issue, the Minister said that he had asked his team

“to work with the Food Foundation to look into setting up a working group”.—[Official Report, 8 May 2019; Vol. 659, c. 312WH.]

Can the Minister please provide a progress report on that commitment? Will he also please restate his commitment to continue listening to and working with the young food ambassadors themselves? The Minister also said that the free school meals allowance will be looked at in the spending review, so can he reaffirm this commitment? Can he give the House an insight on when the spending review is estimated to take place under the new Prime Minister? That may be a little more difficult, but he might have a bit of an idea.

As the chair of the all-party group on school food, I am very interested in this issue, as is my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods), who is a vice-chair of that all-party group. Unfortunately, she was not able to be in her place today either, due to commitments elsewhere in the House. However, she has asked me to put on record her support for a radical change in how we do school food.

As we heard in the closing remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, today we have a report from Feeding Britain, and the excellent academics from Northumbria University, led by Professor Greta Defeyter who is in the Public Gallery today. The report found that in just one year, £88.3 million allocated to local authorities to provide free school meals for eligible children disappeared. The issue was first brought to my attention a number of years ago, and I have tried to get to the bottom of it through Children North East, which is an excellent anti-poverty charity from my region. It raised the issue with me because children had raised it with them. Where does that money go? Who benefits from it? Certainly not the children for whom it is intended.

The young food ambassador spoke to the Minister about that issue directly. Has the Minister had time to consider it further? I am sure he agrees that children should have access to the full benefits they are entitled to and that are intended for them, not for whoever else is managing to pocket the money. He promised that he would write to all schools, and earlier this month he did just that and set out the schools’ responsibilities on food, especially free drinking water. I thank him for that. We all hope that the letter will have had an effect on schools and that we will see immediate changes, especially free water.

It is not only during school time that children go hungry or do not have access to healthy food. Many children up and down the country will be counting down the days to the summer holidays, but for many parents and guardians, those holidays bring not joy but dread. Children who usually receive free school meals do not have access to them when the school gates shut, which is for a total of 170 days per year. Holidays can be an expensive time for all families, especially those who are trying to make their food stretch.

The summer holiday is thought to contribute to many weeks’ worth of learning loss. Professor Greta Defeyter has done studies into that, and it has been academically proven. Many teachers report the effects of that learning loss when the school term begins again after the summer. Andrew McCreery, a youth worker in Portadown, told the Committee that when they asked children to bring a packed lunch for the holiday programmes they were running, 10% to 15% of children brought no lunch, and those who did often brought in bread, cold microwave chips, biscuits, or even an empty lunchbox. That is why I was proud to play a small part by campaigning, lobbying for and securing the holiday hunger provision pilots, and I am pleased they are going ahead again this year.

My hon. Friends the Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck), and for Stoke-on-Trent North do amazing work in their local communities over the summer holidays to ensure that children and families are fed. Because of them, thousands of children who would otherwise go hungry are fed every day in the summer holidays. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has also done that over many years, and they should all be proud of their work. I will try to replicate that and learn from best practice across Sunderland next summer. However, such work should not be down to my hon. Friends, or to the local authorities, charities or communities that step in to do what I believe to be the Government’s job. Will the Minister look at creating a holiday provision framework across the UK, to ensure that those children and families who need it can be fed healthy food over the school holidays?

I move to breakfast clubs, and once again I thank the Minister for giving up some of his valuable time when I met Carmel McConnell from Magic Breakfast and David Holmes from Family Action. I know he was busy, but he gave some of his time to speak to them, which they both appreciated, as did I. Carmel McConnell and David Holmes are doing excellent work, and they currently feed 280,000 school children each day through the national school breakfast programme. However, that funding is scheduled to come to an end in March 2020. This week, the Minister said that funding would be decided in the upcoming spending review—this comes back to his crystal ball.

Is the Minister able to provide any reassurance to children in schools that the funding for the national school breakfast programme will continue beyond March 2020? The programme is a lifeline for children, parents, families and teachers, who see the immediate benefit of a child having breakfast before they start their school day with regard to their learning and, ultimately, their health and long-term outcomes. There can be no better measure to help to close the gap we all talk about than making sure children are not hungry and are able to learn.

Last year, I visited Surrey Square Primary School with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) to see the excellent work the school does in feeding, clothing and caring for children and their families. It is an excellent school and I encourage the Minister to visit if he wants to see a local school that does everything so well. It looks after everyone, all children and families, but especially those with no recourse to public funds. Will the Minister please ensure that children whose families have no recourse to public funds are not forgotten when we design policies for school food? No child, no matter what their family situation, should go hungry in our schools. He may be aware—it was raised in the report—that those children are not entitled to free school meals. They have no recourse to public funds and they are not even entitled to a free school meal unless the school decides to feed them anyway. A lot of schools do. Unfortunately, children across the country are going hungry for lots of reasons and I know the Minister knows he needs to address that.

Having spoken to the young food ambassadors, I know that the Minister is very aware of how important this issue is to them, their peers and their families. The Minister has committed to formally responding to the report in the autumn term, and I thank him for that commitment. I hope he is still a Minister then. If he is able to commit to anything further today, before the summer holidays—before any reshuffle—I know that the young food ambassadors would really appreciate it.

Finally, I would like to welcome today’s launch of the national food strategy, led by Henry Dimbleby. I worked closely with Henry on the excellent school food plan and that work has continued. Cross-departmental considerations on food security and safety are a welcome step towards ensuring that everyone, including children, has access to healthy and affordable food. I very much look forward to working with Henry on this new endeavour.

This has been an excellent debate. I look forward to hearing those who have yet to speak, and to a positive and decisive response from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that point. I intend to address that matter later in my remarks.

Finally, my letter highlighted the range of resources and guidance that is available for schools, including on meeting the mandatory school food standards and supporting children on free school meals, and curriculum resources for schools to help children to lead healthier lives. The Government have recently taken significant action to ensure that all children can access healthy food at school and beyond.

[Mrs Hodgson]

On the Minister’s point about ensuring that schools deliver the healthy food required under standards set out in the school food plan, will the Minister ensure that Ofsted is suitably tooled up and equipped with the most knowledgeable staff, so that when they go into schools to do their inspection, no school will be rated as outstanding unless its food delivery and the food given to children is outstanding?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady makes her point powerfully, as she has done in the past. She is right—we have to look at every lever available to make sure that we nudge school leaders towards the best behaviour in delivering healthy food.

In 2018, our holiday activities and food programme awarded £2 million to holiday club providers to deliver free healthy food and enriching activities to about 18,000 children across the country, as was mentioned earlier. Following the success of this first year, we have more than quadrupled the funding for the summer of 2019. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned, we are working with 11 organisations in 11 local authorities across the country—I am happy to write to her about those organisations. Both the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead said that they were disappointed that there had not been a successful bid from their constituencies for a holiday activities and food co-ordinator. I am sure they will appreciate that there has been a lot of interest in the programme from organisations, but my team is happy to talk to bidders who want more detail and feedback on their bids so that we can keep pushing forward in this area.

I am also proud of my Department’s breakfast clubs programme. We are investing up to £26 million to set up or improve 1,700 breakfast clubs in schools in the most disadvantaged areas of the country, with the clear aim that those clubs stay sustainable over the longer term. The clubs ensure that children start the day with a nutritious breakfast. Such breakfasts not only bring a health benefit, but help children to concentrate and learn in school. I have visited one of these breakfast clubs, and one positive outcome from it was a rise in school attendance, with the fact that parents brought in their children early delivering much better attendance numbers. The children and teachers whom I visited were overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of such clubs.

We also remain committed to ensuring that the most disadvantaged children receive a healthy lunch at school. Last year, more than 1 million disadvantaged children were eligible for and claimed a free school meal, and that important provision has recently been expanded in three significant ways. First, in 2014, we introduced free meals in further education colleges. Secondly, in the same year, we also introduced universal free school meals to all infant children in state-funded schools. Thirdly, under our revised criteria for free school meals, which were introduced last April, we estimate that more children will benefit from free meals by 2022 compared with under the previous benefit system. In fact, numbers released today show that 1.3 million children are benefiting from free school meals.[Official Report, 2 July 2019, Vol. 662, c. 9MC.]

On the point made earlier by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, one recommendation in the inquiry’s report was that any unspent free meal allowance should be carried over for pupils to use on subsequent days. Schools absolutely have the freedom to do this if their local arrangements allow for it—indeed, Carmel Education Trust in the north-east has adopted the practice. The right hon. Gentleman has raised an important point, however, and we should look into the matter to see how we can get all schools to adopt a similar practice, if they can. I should highlight that free school meals are of course intended as a benefit in kind, rather than as a cash benefit, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands that better than I do. Our critical interest is that schools meet their legal requirements to provide free and healthy meals to eligible children every day.

My Department is responsible for setting the mandatory school food standards, which have been mentioned. They require schools to serve children healthy and nutritious food. The standards restrict foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar—both you and I, Mr Deputy Speaker, could benefit from fewer foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar. We are currently in the process of updating the standards, working with Public Health England to deliver a bold reduction in the sugar content of school meals. This is part of a wider Government plan to tackle childhood obesity. Sadly, as was mentioned in the Westminster Hall debate, the other side of the coin with regard to children going without food is obesity among the most disadvantaged families and their children.