Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to (a) monitor schools progress towards and (b) enforce the School Food Standards.

The department supports the provision of nutritious food in schools via the Requirements for School Food Regulations 2014: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1603/contents/made.

Compliance with the School Food Standards is mandatory for all maintained schools including academies and free schools. School Governors have a responsibility to ensure compliance and can ask the headteacher for evidence that the school is compliant with the School Food Standards.

In February 2022 the Levelling Up White Paper outlined what the department is doing to strengthen adherence with the School Food Standards, including investing up to £200,000 in a pilot Governor Training Scheme. We will also be running a joint project with the Food Standards Agency to design and test a new approach for local authorities in England, to help assure compliance with the School Food Standards. We will promote accountability and transparency of school food arrangements by encouraging schools to complete a statement on their school websites, which sets out their whole school approach to food. The reporting would be voluntary initially, with the intention that this will become mandatory when schools can do this effectively.

The Healthy Schools Rating Scheme celebrates the positive actions that schools are delivering in terms of healthy living, healthy eating and physical activity, and supports schools in identifying further actions that they can take in this area. This voluntary rating scheme is available for both primary and secondary schools. Schools engage in a self-assessment exercise and receive their rating based on their responses to questions on subjects including compliance with the mandatory school food standards.