Children’s Future Food Report

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Nadhim Zahawi

Thursday 27th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[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.

Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Nadhim Zahawi

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank the Minister for leaving me time to make some closing remarks.

This has been an excellent debate, although in my opinion it was far too short—it was over-subscribed, which is a good thing, but in the time allocated we obviously had too many speakers. I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) to seek a Backbench Business debate, as she was unable to set out fully her expert knowledge in this area. Indeed, all my hon. Friends had to curtail their speeches.

I am very happy that the Minister agreed to meet me—as I think he did—

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I did.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Excellent. Will the Minister also extend that invitation to my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak, who as he knows is a member of the Work and Pensions Committee? She has considerable expertise in the area.

I again encourage the Minister to read the school food plan—in particular, chapter 11, on the benefits of free school meals. The School Food Plan Alliance would happily meet him and become his new best friends if he wanted to take them up on that.

The cliff edge needs addressing—it is far too low. If there needs to be a cliff edge for all the reasons the Minister set out, it needs to be substantially higher up: £7,400 is too low.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sharon Hodgson and Nadhim Zahawi

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

There are unique challenges for servicemen and women who move around, and the Education Endowment Foundation is looking at that very seriously.

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

The pupil premium is there to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds and to address poor attainment. Is the Minister as concerned as I am that the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has identified that there is a growing north-south divide, which is impacting on attainment, too?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Everything we are about is narrowing that gap.