Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential contribution of school food procurement to the resilience of the (a) fruit and (b) vegetable supply chain.

The new national procurement policy statement sets out requirements for government contracts, favouring products certified to high environmental standards that we think British producers operating to high standards are well-placed to meet.

We are engaging with stakeholders on revising the school food standards to ensure the guidance supports our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history. The current standards state one or more portions of vegetables as an accompaniment and one or more portions of fruit must be provided every day, as well as at least three different fruits and three different vegetables each week. As with all aspects of the school food standards review, we will consider our approach to fruit and vegetable provision.