Children: Food

(asked on 6th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to ensure that vouchers granted through any future programme providing meals for schoolchildren during school holidays are only used to purchase food.


Answered by
Baroness Berridge Portrait
Baroness Berridge
This question was answered on 20th October 2020

The free school meal national voucher scheme has now closed.

As schools and their kitchens are now open, they should provide healthy, nutritious meal options for all children who are in school, and meals should be available free of charge to all infant pupils and pupils who meet the benefits-related free school meals eligibility criteria.

Schools should work with their existing suppliers to provide meals or food parcels to pupils eligible for benefits-related free school meals where they are self-isolating.

Guidance on food parcels has been produced by the Lead Association for Catering in Education, Public Health England and the department. It sets out some general principles for putting together a food parcel which will allow parents/carers to prepare simple and healthy lunches for their children at home. This can be found here: https://laca.co.uk/laca-view/free-school-meals-guidance-producing-food-parcels.

Our latest guidance for schools is set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools.

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