Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to make healthy food options affordable to low-income families.

The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone has access to nutritious, affordable food. The Government’s recently launched Food Strategy will ensure that access to healthy food is affordable and accessible to all.

The Government has also committed to roll out free breakfast clubs at all primary schools, whilst also tripling investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million. Additionally, this Government has committed to delivering its plan to make work pay to turn the minimum wage into a real living wage so that working families can afford healthy food

Defra regularly engages with supermarkets and producers about a range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food. These measures include maintaining value ranges, price matching and price freezing. The range and price of food is a commercial decision for each retailer and the Government does not interfere in their day-to-day operations.

This Government will also be introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and increasing the National Living Wage, boosting the pay of 3 million workers, ensuring that everyone can afford to make healthy food choices.