Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of the National Food Strategy's recommendation to remove the requirement to serve meat three times a week from the School Food Standards.

The Department believes that the current standards provide a robust yet flexible framework to ensure that pupils in England continue to receive high-quality and nutritious food, that encourages healthy eating habits for life.

The Department’s current focus is on promoting compliance with the school food standards and it will keep this under review. In February 2022, the Levelling Up White Paper outlined a number of things the Department is doing to strengthen adherence, including piloting work with the Foods Standards Agency, spending up to £200,000 in a pilot Governor Training Scheme and encouraging schools to complete a statement on their school websites setting out their whole school approach to food.

The Department will consider the National Food Strategy’s recommendations in future updates.