School Pupils with Allergies

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Westminster Hall

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

I also commend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this very important debate and agree with the tributes from the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who also gave a very powerful and moving speech. I also welcome Benedict’s parents and others who are with us today; as hard as it was for the hon. Lady to talk about Benedict—and she did so really well—I can imagine how hard it is for them to be here and to listen to the debate. I just want to place on record our thanks to you for everything you have done and for being here today.

We are all here today to discuss the incredibly urgent need for school-wide, mandatory, standardised allergy policies—not just guidelines—that would standardise provision and protection in all schools across the country and end the postcode lottery of provision that so tragically results in up to six children—I think that is the figure the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton gave—dying in their schools each year, with many more children experiencing horrific anaphylactic reactions. In the case of coeliacs, I think the term is “being glutened”, which leads to long-term damage to the gut, as well as to short-term, painful symptoms. At the very least, we need to discuss the need for schools to have strict and standardised anaphylaxis plans and in-date and accessible EpiPens.

In 2022, it was found that around 30% of allergy reactions in schools occur in children previously not known to have had a food allergy, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) in his excellent speech, or in children with an allergy that had not been communicated to school staff. That is why it is so unfair to rely on parents of children with allergies to have to be the only experts in the room, left to self-advocate and protect their children from afar. That is also why we cannot limit EpiPen administration to children with recorded allergies.

I want to take the opportunity of today’s debate to focus on a specific issue relating to allergies in schools. Food allergies in schools come to a crucial flashpoint of risk at lunchtime. Over the last few months, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, I have spoken to and been lobbied by more and more key charities and stakeholders on the allergy safety campaign, including organisations like the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, Coeliac UK and the Benedict Blythe Foundation. They have shared with me what are, frankly, horror stories of children being served allergen-contaminated food at school; contamination from other children’s packed lunches; children being made to eat alone in classrooms away from their peers; and children missing out on lunchtime activities, Christmas lunches and teddy bears’ picnics—all because allergy-safe provision was never prioritised. Their children’s needs meant that they were excluded and forgotten—to keep them safe, I suppose.

At the launch of the Food Foundation’s fantastic report on better school food just yesterday, knowing that this debate was coming up today, I spoke to several young people who received free school meals about their experiences of food in their schools. I asked them about how allergies complicate their lunchtimes and the lunchtimes of their friends. I heard from them that their friends with allergies end up limited, from all the choices on offer, often to just a jacket potato or the same food every single mealtime. I heard of young people who have had to move schools to access school food that would be safe for them. The lack of access to allergy-friendly food is compounded exponentially when a child is in receipt of free school meals and often limited to just £2.50 per meal. The level of provision is just not there. Caterers need additional support, funding and training to make varied and nutritious allergy-friendly meals.

My son-in-law is coeliac. One day, God willing, I may have grandchildren, but I am well aware that those grandchildren may have coeliac disease, so this fear is very real for me. I am also aware, therefore, how much more expensive gluten-free food is and how important it is not to have any cross-contamination in food preparation or serving areas. You only have to cook with my daughter, when she knows we are cooking for the wider family, including her husband, to realise how careful you have to be. She screams at me, “Don’t use that spoon!”—because it is a wooden spoon that I have stirred a pan of pasta with. It really, really does matter, but it takes extra space and money, none of which schools receive for this issue. I am also aware how hard school chefs and catering teams work to try to meet all the needs of their pupils with allergies, but the Government need to help them with proper, standardised policies, and the appropriate funding and training to enable them to do this properly.

Rightly, if we had a young person with, say, a religious food requirement, like kosher or halal food, we would facilitate their provision on the grounds of equality and inclusion. Similarly, access to suitable food for a young person with, say, a special educational need or disability, who had a feeding and food need, would be recognised as part of the reasonable adjustments that they require under the law. If we can recognise how important it is for schools to adhere to equality and inclusion laws for food for a variety of pupils, surely for allergies, many of which may be damaging to health or life-threatening, as we have heard, it is as—if not more—important to do the same.

I have long fought for school food for all children, and I have long fought for high-quality, nutritious school food. As the prevalence of food allergies continues to rise at the rapid rate of about 5% each year—we could have a whole debate on why that is the case, because it is interesting in and of itself—the gulf of inequality of access will continue to grow, unless we do something about it.

Children should not lose their ability to be well fed at school because of something that could be recognised as an additional need. I am not suggesting that allergies need to come under education, health and care plans or be labelled as a disability. But the point stands that the health and wellbeing—and sometimes survival—needs of these children are causing them to be excluded. That is discrimination, and that is at best; at worst, it can cause their death. That is why I implore the Minister to urgently implement the schools allergy code that we have heard about in detail today, and I look forward to his response.