Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their announcement in the Autumn Statement to make up to £7 million available to tackle antisemitism in schools and universities, whether they intend to allocate some of those funds to the University Jewish Chaplaincy, a charity which employs professional chaplains to provide support to Jewish students.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Following the Autumn Statement announcement, the government is preparing to issue an invitation for interested organisations to tender for contracts to tackle antisemitism in schools, colleges and universities. The tender process will be run in accordance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015. The University Jewish Chaplaincy may wish to consider submitting a bid in response to the invitation to tender.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the annual cost (1) in total, and (2) per pupil, of providing lunches to pupils in (a) primary, and (b) secondary, schools.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government spends over £550 million a year on in England, through the National Funding Formula, to ensure that 1.4 million disadvantaged children benefit from free school meals. A further 1.4 million infant pupils are also supported through universal infant free school meals.
The National School Breakfast Programme, running from March 2018 to March 2021, is supporting up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas, at an overall cost to the government of approximately £35 million. Unit costs are commercially sensitive and therefore cannot be made available. Many schools operate their own breakfast club arrangements.
There is legislation in place that ensures schools provide meals to all pupils who want them, which should be provided free to those eligible for benefits-related free school meals or universal infant free school meals.
The Schools Food Standards provide the legislative framework to ensure schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
The standards define the foods and drinks that must be provided, which foods are restricted, and those, which must not be provided. They apply to all food and drink provided to pupils on and off school premises and during an extended school day (up to 6pm), including school trips, breakfast clubs, tuck shops, mid-morning break, vending and after school clubs. The department’s advice is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england.
A summary of the standards and a practical guide are available from the school food plan website at:
http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/resources.
I believe that the School Food Standards have been transformational in the way schools operate their meal services. We will be updating these standards to bring them into line with revised nutritional recommendations in due course, this work is currently paused due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the annual cost (1) in total, and (2) per pupil, of breakfast clubs in (a) primary, and (b) secondary, schools.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government spends over £550 million a year on in England, through the National Funding Formula, to ensure that 1.4 million disadvantaged children benefit from free school meals. A further 1.4 million infant pupils are also supported through universal infant free school meals.
The National School Breakfast Programme, running from March 2018 to March 2021, is supporting up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas, at an overall cost to the government of approximately £35 million. Unit costs are commercially sensitive and therefore cannot be made available. Many schools operate their own breakfast club arrangements.
There is legislation in place that ensures schools provide meals to all pupils who want them, which should be provided free to those eligible for benefits-related free school meals or universal infant free school meals.
The Schools Food Standards provide the legislative framework to ensure schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
The standards define the foods and drinks that must be provided, which foods are restricted, and those, which must not be provided. They apply to all food and drink provided to pupils on and off school premises and during an extended school day (up to 6pm), including school trips, breakfast clubs, tuck shops, mid-morning break, vending and after school clubs. The department’s advice is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england.
A summary of the standards and a practical guide are available from the school food plan website at:
http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/resources.
I believe that the School Food Standards have been transformational in the way schools operate their meal services. We will be updating these standards to bring them into line with revised nutritional recommendations in due course, this work is currently paused due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what arrangements are in place to ensure that meals provided to pupils in (1) primary, and (2) secondary, schools meet national standards for nutritional value.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government spends over £550 million a year on in England, through the National Funding Formula, to ensure that 1.4 million disadvantaged children benefit from free school meals. A further 1.4 million infant pupils are also supported through universal infant free school meals.
The National School Breakfast Programme, running from March 2018 to March 2021, is supporting up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas, at an overall cost to the government of approximately £35 million. Unit costs are commercially sensitive and therefore cannot be made available. Many schools operate their own breakfast club arrangements.
There is legislation in place that ensures schools provide meals to all pupils who want them, which should be provided free to those eligible for benefits-related free school meals or universal infant free school meals.
The Schools Food Standards provide the legislative framework to ensure schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
The standards define the foods and drinks that must be provided, which foods are restricted, and those, which must not be provided. They apply to all food and drink provided to pupils on and off school premises and during an extended school day (up to 6pm), including school trips, breakfast clubs, tuck shops, mid-morning break, vending and after school clubs. The department’s advice is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england.
A summary of the standards and a practical guide are available from the school food plan website at:
http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/resources.
I believe that the School Food Standards have been transformational in the way schools operate their meal services. We will be updating these standards to bring them into line with revised nutritional recommendations in due course, this work is currently paused due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many ministerial visits have been made to Family Drug and Alcohol Court teams in the last twelve months; and which teams have been visited.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
There have been no ministerial visits made to Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) teams in the last twelve months. Whilst there have been no ministerial visits to FDAC teams in the past 12 months, the government’s Supporting Families: Investing in Practice programme is currently investing over £17 million to enable local authorities to adapt one of three successful targeted Innovation Programme projects that have the strongest evidence of successfully keeping families together. Local authorities will be supported to embed one of three models and one of these models is FDACs. Expressions of Interest were invited from all local authorities. The successful local authorities for FDACs were announced on 9 August 2019. Local authorities will be ready to start on 1 April 2020 and evaluation will take place over a two-year period. Findings are scheduled to be published in Summer 2022.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how they propose to support Family Drug and Alcohol Court teams beyond the end of the Supporting Families: Investing in Practice programme.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
We are investing approximately £17 million in the Supporting Families: Investing in Practice (SFIP) programme to roll out innovation models that have evidence of successfully keeping families together.
Through this programme, we are testing the impact that Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs) can have in improving outcomes for children and families.
The evaluation work carried out by the What Works for Children’s Social Care will help us to identify how best to support vulnerable children and their families through FDACs.
FDACs offer important support to families. Those local areas who were unsuccessful in the SFIP programme can choose to establish or commission these services locally. The government will be sharing the evaluation of the programme to help with broader set up.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they will offer to areas which were unsuccessful in applying for Supporting Families: Investing in Practice funding in order to establish a Family Drug and Alcohol Court team.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
We are investing approximately £17 million in the Supporting Families: Investing in Practice (SFIP) programme to roll out innovation models that have evidence of successfully keeping families together.
Through this programme, we are testing the impact that Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs) can have in improving outcomes for children and families.
The evaluation work carried out by the What Works for Children’s Social Care will help us to identify how best to support vulnerable children and their families through FDACs.
FDACs offer important support to families. Those local areas who were unsuccessful in the SFIP programme can choose to establish or commission these services locally. The government will be sharing the evaluation of the programme to help with broader set up.