Free School Meals

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I want to thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing today’s debate and for her excellent opening speech setting the scene. The topic of school food—and specifically free school meals—has been an incredibly important one for me throughout my parliamentary career. In fact, I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, which I set up in 2010, and I am pleased to say that a number of colleagues here today are also very important members.

As we have heard, in the UK our devolved nations each have their own individual free school meal offers. In Scotland, all primary school children, regardless of family income, are eligible for free school meals and all secondary school students are subject to a means-tested offer. In Wales, all children who attend mainstream primary schools are eligible for a free school meal. In Northern Ireland there is no universal offer; however, the eligibility criteria for the means-tested offer includes families with an annual taxable income of up to £16,190 or net earnings of under £14,000 a year, which is almost twice as high as the same offer in England, and means that around 30% of the entire school population are eligible. The levels of poverty across the north-east, and indeed in other parts of England, are the same as in Northern Ireland, and yet such different levels of means-testing are used. That is just unfair.

In England, all children in reception, year 1 and year 2 currently receive a hot, healthy meal each day. Universal infant free school meals is a policy I am very proud of, having worked with Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent on the school food plan that helped convince them to put universal primary free school meals as one of their recommendations, which, as we heard, the former Deputy Prime Minister then enacted when they were in the coalition Government, which I think we are all very happy still exists to this day—the free school meals, not the coalition Government! However, from year 3 onwards, provision of free school meals is means-tested. Only children in households in England who receive universal credit and earn less than £7,400—excluding benefit payments—are eligible for free school meals. On that note, in today’s short speech I will focus on how we must change the policy in England. For too long, England has been the poor relation. It is just not good enough. We have the least generous offers around school food, and the highest rates of children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals.

We must also think about the quality of the food that we are providing to our students. The school food standards are a fantastic set of regulations that provide guidance on the nutritional quality and variety of food that children should have access to at school. When they are followed correctly, the school meal offers are some of the best in the world, and I work with parliamentarians around the world, so I speak with some authority on this. However, sadly some schools struggle to do so, and they need support. In England there is no consistent assessment, monitoring or reporting of whether schools are meeting the standards for school food. There is no ring-fencing of funding, either. This means that the quality is very variable, with some children benefiting from nutritious, delicious food while others receive lower-quality meals.

We must discuss the structural issues surrounding provision that make delivering school meals unsustainable. For example, as has been talked about already, the funding per meal for universal infant free school meals is far too low. It is just £2.53 across most of England, despite the average meal cost exceeding this. The funding must be raised to £3 per meal to adequately cover the cost of the ingredients and the labour costs for school food. We all eat in restaurants; we know the prices have gone up. Schools are being asked to do an impossible thing at the moment. The rising cost of these meals and the dwindling funding means that, inevitably, quality is going to slip.

We need to revolutionise eligibility. I truly believe that the best school meal offer is a universal free school meal offer, as we have seen with the triumph of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s universal free school meal offer for primary school children in London. It seems popular as well—I think he won, didn’t he? But I understand that the road to a universal offer is a journey. That is why I am calling on the Government to, without delay, expand eligibility to all children whose parents and carers receive universal credit, so that we can begin to tackle the horrifying reality that, as we have heard, 900,000 children living in poverty are currently ineligible, according to the Child Poverty Action Group.

The next step on this road is to implement automatic enrolment as soon as possible. Local authorities like Sheffield are leading the way on this already, and prove it works. Every eligible child should be eligible from day one. This is not an expensive change. The Government already know exactly who is eligible and who is not, so families should not need to apply. It needs to be automatic from when the child is enrolled in school, or when their circumstances change. That will help schools too because they will get extra pupil premium, and that can then unlock access to resources and support as well as a hot meal for these children.

Free school meals are foundational to a fair and equal school experience. When we provide them, they leave inequality at the school gate and liberate children from the injustice of the haves and the have-nots.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.

We have heard how 900,000 children from low-income families are not in receipt of free school meals and about the adequacy of what many children are receiving, not least if they take a packed lunch—they are not being nutritiously fed throughout the day. In fact, only 1% of packed lunches reach nutritional standards. In York, that is very much the case. We have about 4,000 children who are entitled to be in receipt of free school meals, but only about 3,000—about 75%—actually receiving them, because we do not have auto-enrolment. I urge the Government to join up the data so that we see eligibility following through to receipt of free school meals. It can be done, it must be done, and it will ensure that those families are well served.

I want to talk in particular about York Hungry Minds. York has the lowest-funded upper-tier local authority in the country, yet, as a Right to Food city, it prioritised feeding hungry children when Labour came to power in the council last May. City of York Council put the first £100,000 into Two Ridings Community Foundation as a vehicle for sourcing and independently funding the programme. It then called for city partners, including in industry and business, as well as individuals from the community, to boost that fund.

The pilot that York is engaged in is based in two schools: Westfield, where there are already far better healthy lunch choices for the children at key stage 2; and Burton Green, which is investing in breakfast for children. The results are already incredible. Starting in January this year, the research piece by the University of York will follow the pilot through to the end of the year. Researchers are already seeing an improvement in attendance—an issue that the Government are wrestling with at the moment—and far better engagement in learning. These are the early seeds of what it means to have a full stomach and to be able to work in such an environment.

I really do congratulate those involved in the project, but we need to ensure that the funding continues and is available for roll-out across our city. That is certainly the ambition of the Labour council, but we need the support of Government. I am delighted that Labour is so committed to ensuring that children start the day with a full stomach. We know the difference that will make for them.

This is not just about what happens for a child in school; it is about resetting the life course inequality that we see across our society. We want to address that by ensuring that children are well fed. That inequality results in differentiations in exam results, in where children move on to, and ultimately in the career choices that they can make and in their incomes. If we are to break intergenerational inequality, that small measure of having high-value, highly nutritious meals at the start of the day—and, I trust, rolling into the middle of the day too—is so important. That can be the game changer that families need.

However, we need to evaluate as we go, and that is why I congratulate the University of York on its investment in not only the project that I described but in looking at child hunger. It is evaluating the difference that the project will make to the lives of those children by looking at how much healthy food is going to them as a result of the menu choices; by looking at the amount of food waste, which is another important factor; and by looking at any changes in readiness to learn, in absence due to ill health or in school attendance. Looking at the data, which I trust the Minister will do, will strengthen the opportunity to roll out these programmes.

It is also important that the programme looks at the stigma around the provision of free school meals. We must remember that no child wants to be differentiated because of the income level or socioeconomic disadvantage their family experiences.

[Mrs Hodgson]

One of the reasons that John Vincent and Henry Dimbleby, who authored the school food plan, said that they included recommendation 17 on universal free primary school meals is that, when they looked at the evidence, the children who improved the most when all the boats rose were those who were already entitled to free school meals. The only thing that had been removed was the stigma. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is very important?

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend knows so much about this subject and could not make a more powerful point. We need all young people who have hungry stomachs to be able to engage, and taking away the stigma not only gives those children confidence but ensures that the issue of hunger is addressed.

I would like to quickly reinforce some of the points that colleagues have made. It is important that we make sure that thresholds rise and are appropriate, and it is important that people can enrol in the holiday activities fund if their eligibility changes over the holiday period, rather than having to wait until the beginning of the new year. It is possible to do that, and I trust that the Minister will.

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[Catherine McKinnell]

The breakfast club offer, which we have fully costed and will deliver, is a first step on the road to making sure that we put money back into people’s pockets, break down the barriers to opportunity and deliver a cross-Government strategy to tackle child poverty. Free breakfast clubs are the first step on that road.

However, we also want to see the costs of uniforms come down for all families. We want to give children the best start in life to set them up for life and set them up to learn. As the hon. Member for Twickenham pointed out herself, after 14 years of Conservative Government we have a situation where an average of nine children in a classroom of 30 are growing up in poverty. That is why we will introduce a cross-Government taskforce aimed at breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child in every community. We will focus the limited resources we are set to inherit where we believe they can impact the most.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I will be very brief; I think my hon. Friend is just coming to her big wind-up moment. I know she is in an invidious position—an impossible position. I am sure that, like the rest of us, she would like to stand here and announce universal free school meals, and obviously she cannot, because that is not in her gift today.

One thing that I notice has not been raised at all today—I know she will be concerned about it and could take this back to the Front Bench when they are developing policy—is the issue of dinner money debt. She talked about putting money back into parents’ pockets, and there are so many families who struggle with dinner money debt. Universal free school meals would obviously solve that. When the policy is being developed and talked about, I hope she will feed that in.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend is such a passionate campaigner for children in her area, and indeed the country. I did not want to let this moment pass without her getting the chance to add in that final additional measure that she would like to see.

I am conscious that the Government need to respond to this debate, so I do not want to take up any more time. I want to finish by emphasising that child poverty in this country is pernicious, but does not demand a simple fix. It needs hard work, focus and prioritisation across Government Departments. It needs a targeted approach to tackle the root causes of poverty and break down the barriers that are holding far too many people back. The next Labour Government will take on that mission, and like previous Labour Governments, we are determined to deliver on it.

[The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I join colleagues in congratulating the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this important debate. I thank everybody who has taken part alongside her: the hon. Members for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), for West Ham (Ms Brown), for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), and for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), and the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms). I also thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who spoke for the SNP, and the spokesperson for the official Opposition, whose speech contained a short section on free school meals. This is an important subject on which we have heard striking and compelling speeches from Members, and the debate has been important and useful.

The Government are determined to ensure that every child, regardless of their background, has the best start in life, and nutrition and school meals are important in that. Not only do they support the development of healthy eating habits that can pave the way to lifelong wellbeing, but they help pupils to concentrate, to learn and to get the most from their education in the immediate term. For those reasons, the Department for Education spends more than £1.5 billion annually on policies to deliver free and nutritious food to children and young people; that is on food provision alone. On top of that, we allocate money to schools to support the education and opportunity of disadvantaged children that is driven by their free-school-meal status, such as through the pupil premium and the deprivation factor in the national funding formula.

I am proud that this Government have extended eligibility for free school meals more than any other. We spend over £1 billion per annum delivering free lunches to the greatest ever proportion of school children: over a third. That is in contrast to the one in six who were receiving a free school meal in 2010. This change is despite unemployment being down by a million, more than 600,000 fewer children being in workless households since 2010 and the proportion of people in low hourly pay having halved since 2015.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I just want to point out that that is, of course, because of the introduction of universal infant free school meals, which, it has to be said, was a coalition Government policy; the Conservatives cannot really take full credit for that because I doubt it would have happened without the coalition Government.

[Damian Hinds]

When the hon. Member for Twickenham was on her feet, she claimed that the 2014 Act was entirely due to the Liberal Democrats. Of course, it was not; it was a coalition Government at the time. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West is partly right. There have been multiple extensions to free school meal eligibility, including the provision of free school meals to disadvantaged children in further education colleges. The big factor has been the extension of protections under universal credit, which of course has happened since the coalition Government.

School Pupils with Allergies

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I also commend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this very important debate and agree with the tributes from the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), who also gave a very powerful and moving speech. I also welcome Benedict’s parents and others who are with us today; as hard as it was for the hon. Lady to talk about Benedict—and she did so really well—I can imagine how hard it is for them to be here and to listen to the debate. I just want to place on record our thanks to you for everything you have done and for being here today.

We are all here today to discuss the incredibly urgent need for school-wide, mandatory, standardised allergy policies—not just guidelines—that would standardise provision and protection in all schools across the country and end the postcode lottery of provision that so tragically results in up to six children—I think that is the figure the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton gave—dying in their schools each year, with many more children experiencing horrific anaphylactic reactions. In the case of coeliacs, I think the term is “being glutened”, which leads to long-term damage to the gut, as well as to short-term, painful symptoms. At the very least, we need to discuss the need for schools to have strict and standardised anaphylaxis plans and in-date and accessible EpiPens.

In 2022, it was found that around 30% of allergy reactions in schools occur in children previously not known to have had a food allergy, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) in his excellent speech, or in children with an allergy that had not been communicated to school staff. That is why it is so unfair to rely on parents of children with allergies to have to be the only experts in the room, left to self-advocate and protect their children from afar. That is also why we cannot limit EpiPen administration to children with recorded allergies.

I want to take the opportunity of today’s debate to focus on a specific issue relating to allergies in schools. Food allergies in schools come to a crucial flashpoint of risk at lunchtime. Over the last few months, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, I have spoken to and been lobbied by more and more key charities and stakeholders on the allergy safety campaign, including organisations like the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, Coeliac UK and the Benedict Blythe Foundation. They have shared with me what are, frankly, horror stories of children being served allergen-contaminated food at school; contamination from other children’s packed lunches; children being made to eat alone in classrooms away from their peers; and children missing out on lunchtime activities, Christmas lunches and teddy bears’ picnics—all because allergy-safe provision was never prioritised. Their children’s needs meant that they were excluded and forgotten—to keep them safe, I suppose.

At the launch of the Food Foundation’s fantastic report on better school food just yesterday, knowing that this debate was coming up today, I spoke to several young people who received free school meals about their experiences of food in their schools. I asked them about how allergies complicate their lunchtimes and the lunchtimes of their friends. I heard from them that their friends with allergies end up limited, from all the choices on offer, often to just a jacket potato or the same food every single mealtime. I heard of young people who have had to move schools to access school food that would be safe for them. The lack of access to allergy-friendly food is compounded exponentially when a child is in receipt of free school meals and often limited to just £2.50 per meal. The level of provision is just not there. Caterers need additional support, funding and training to make varied and nutritious allergy-friendly meals.

My son-in-law is coeliac. One day, God willing, I may have grandchildren, but I am well aware that those grandchildren may have coeliac disease, so this fear is very real for me. I am also aware, therefore, how much more expensive gluten-free food is and how important it is not to have any cross-contamination in food preparation or serving areas. You only have to cook with my daughter, when she knows we are cooking for the wider family, including her husband, to realise how careful you have to be. She screams at me, “Don’t use that spoon!”—because it is a wooden spoon that I have stirred a pan of pasta with. It really, really does matter, but it takes extra space and money, none of which schools receive for this issue. I am also aware how hard school chefs and catering teams work to try to meet all the needs of their pupils with allergies, but the Government need to help them with proper, standardised policies, and the appropriate funding and training to enable them to do this properly.

Rightly, if we had a young person with, say, a religious food requirement, like kosher or halal food, we would facilitate their provision on the grounds of equality and inclusion. Similarly, access to suitable food for a young person with, say, a special educational need or disability, who had a feeding and food need, would be recognised as part of the reasonable adjustments that they require under the law. If we can recognise how important it is for schools to adhere to equality and inclusion laws for food for a variety of pupils, surely for allergies, many of which may be damaging to health or life-threatening, as we have heard, it is as—if not more—important to do the same.

I have long fought for school food for all children, and I have long fought for high-quality, nutritious school food. As the prevalence of food allergies continues to rise at the rapid rate of about 5% each year—we could have a whole debate on why that is the case, because it is interesting in and of itself—the gulf of inequality of access will continue to grow, unless we do something about it.

Children should not lose their ability to be well fed at school because of something that could be recognised as an additional need. I am not suggesting that allergies need to come under education, health and care plans or be labelled as a disability. But the point stands that the health and wellbeing—and sometimes survival—needs of these children are causing them to be excluded. That is discrimination, and that is at best; at worst, it can cause their death. That is why I implore the Minister to urgently implement the schools allergy code that we have heard about in detail today, and I look forward to his response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

When it launched, HAF was the first summer camp for hundreds of thousands of children—70% had never experienced a holiday club before—and this summer, 4,000 children benefited in East Sussex. HAF is open to children from ages five to 16. Local authorities should meet the needs of all cohorts, including by offering programmes for older children and those with special educational needs. I urge all hon. Members to visit their local HAF over the Christmas recess; they really are heart-warming.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I have visited my local HAF in Washington over the last few summers, and I certainly will if there is one at Christmas. Does the Minister have any plans to extend the scheme further? There is obviously a lot more need than the current HAF schemes can meet, especially with the cost of living crisis.

[Gillian Keegan]

As I mentioned, 685,000 children were helped just this summer. Our independent evaluation found that around two thirds of the 700,000 children attending overall live in some of the most deprived areas across the country, so we believe we are getting the targeting right. We are very proud of this programme, which we think is a brilliant addition to the landscape, and we want to ensure that it benefits as many people as possible.

Universal Infant Free School Meals

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine]

Yes. School food is important. My good friend, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, is here. When I was the public health Minister, I worked with Kellogg’s on school breakfast clubs and the breakfast club awards that it runs so successfully in our country. I am sorry that the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak) did not bear fruit in this Budget, but I know he will not give up, and I shall work alongside him. As Chair of the Select Committee on Health and Social Care and a constituency MP, I am interested in this issue, as well as in wider prevention work. Healthy, well-fed children learn well.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Steve Brine]

As I mentioned the hon. Lady, I had best give way to her.

[Mrs Hodgson]

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I chair the APPG on school food. He makes the point that the money given for infant free school meals has not kept pace with inflation. Public sector caterers are really struggling to continue to provide the high-quality meals that we all want provided. If funding had risen with inflation since 2014, the amount per meal would stand at £2.97; it is currently only £2.41, as the hon. Gentleman knows. By my maths, that is a 19% shortfall—£150 per year, per child. The Government are yet again asking schools to do more with less. Does he agree that school meal funding needs to be made fit for the future?

[Steve Brine]

That is the point of today’s debate. I will supplement the figures that the hon. Lady gave in one moment. We have slightly digressed, and now we are back on subject. I am told that the impact of food inflation has already resulted in some pupils being forced to accept smaller lunches with potentially lower nutritional value, and in some cases schools have opted to offer only packed lunches because of the cost of the energy needed to produce lunches. Some wholesalers have reported that they are reducing portion sizes; thinner sliced ham in baguettes and reduced meat content in sausages are two examples. That should worry all of us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Brine]

I do, and if I were a London MP, I would be very concerned about that. I can understand that the policy is electorally attractive on a leaflet, but unless it is funded, we could end up with the situation that I am describing, times some. As I said, the debate is not about widening entitlement to free school meals to all primary children, but the hon. Lady sets out a great danger.

[Mrs Hodgson]

On a point of clarification, I, too was worried about the funding and had read the same information as the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), so I asked to meet the Mayor of London’s team, who will be taking the programme forward. They assured me that although a sum of money has been assigned—a proposed £2.65 a meal—the funding will be found and will be sustainable. They are aware of the concerns, but—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

Of course, we keep all the issues under review and continually look at school funding. We look at the composition of the national funding formula in great detail every year; we are doing so now for the following year.

The funding for the free school meal factor in the national funding formula is increasing by 2.4% for 2023-24 in line with the latest available GDP deflator forecast when the 2023-24 national funding formula was published in July of last year. As a result of the significant extra school funding awarded by the Chancellor in the autumn statement, schools will receive an additional £2 billion in each of the ’23-24 and ’24-25 academic years.

The core schools budget, which covers schools’ day-to-day running costs, including their energy bills and the costs of providing income-related free school meals, rose from £49.8 billion in ’21-22 to £53.8 billion the year after, and will continue to rise to £57.3 billion in ’23-24 and £58.8 billion in ’24-25. By ’24-25, funding per pupil will have risen to its highest ever level in real terms. Those increases provide support to schools to deal with the impact of inflation on their budgets.

We spend about £600 million a year ensuring that an additional 1.25 million infants enjoy a free, healthy and nutritious meal at lunchtime. Combined with around 1.9 million pupils who are eligible for and claim a meal through benefits-related free school meals, this accounts for more than one third of all pupils in school, compared with 2010, when one sixth of pupils were eligible for free school meals. The Government also support a further 90,000 disadvantaged further education students with a free meal at lunchtime.

All children in reception, year 1 and year 2 in England’s state-funded schools receive a free meal, and have done since the introduction of the policy in 2014. Schools up and down the country offer free meals to their infant pupils, helping to improve children’s education, boost their health and save parents around £400 a year. Universal infant free school meals are funded through a direct grant to schools. To recognise the pressures facing schools, last June we announced an £18 million increase to the per-pupil funding rate for universal infant free school meals to support costs of food, transport and staff wages. That increased rate was backdated to April in recognition of those costs.

We understand the issues that are being raised and acknowledge that factors such as transport costs and the cost of living wage affecting catering workers are having an impact on the amount that can be spent on infant meals in schools. The Government take on board the comments regarding a discrepancy between the funding rate attributed to universal infant free school meals when compared to the rate provided for those pupils in receipt of benefits-related free school meals. The rate of funding for UIFSM is regularly reviewed, and I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester and all other hon. Members taking part in this debate that I am actively looking at this area. All school meals provided under universal infant free school meals are required to adhere to the school food standards, which require school caterers to serve healthy and nutritious food and drinks to ensure that children get the energy and nutrition that they need across the school day.

In recognition of cost pressures on core schools funding, including benefits-related free schools meals, we have already distributed additional funding through a schools supplementary grant. As a result, core schools funding for mainstream schools increased by £2.5 billion in the 2022-23 financial year, compared with the previous year.

It is right that individual schools determine their own budgets for meal provision by taking into account funding received centrally alongside funding for meals paid for by parents. We expect schools to enter into supply contracts accordingly. While the Government set the legal requirements for food provision and standards, we do not set the contract price, which is subject to agreement between schools and the suppliers.

[Mrs Hodgson]

The Minister mentioned the importance of those meals being healthy, and that is a key factor in UIFSM. It is not just about alleviating food poverty, but about removing the stigma. On the health point, the four London boroughs that have extended school meals to all primary children have found that obesity rates have fallen by 9.3% in reception children, and 5.6% in year 6 children. Pockets of bad practice on school food are few and far between, and we normally hear about good practice. The Minister will agree that school food is by far the healthiest option. Only 1% of packed lunches have been found to meet the school food standards.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions really must be brief.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho]

I am really exercised about this issue. I speak to parents of children with SEND all the time, and I do think that they find the experience very adversarial. I will be setting out more details in the implementation strategy shortly, but this is something that I care very passionately about.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

The current national school breakfast programme reaches only one quarter of the children living in areas with high levels of deprivation in England. Labour has set out our universal free breakfast offer, which will mean that no child will be too hungry to learn. When will the Government join the Labour party in that commitment?

[Nick Gibb]

We are spending £30 million between 2021 and 2024 on the school breakfast programme, which offers free breakfast to children in disadvantaged areas, supporting their attainment and readiness to learn. The focus of the breakfast provision has been to target the most disadvantaged areas of the country, and that has been our strategy.

Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I will speak very quickly, Madam Deputy Speaker. When I became chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties in 2016, the implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014 was under way. I had taken that piece of legislation through Parliament as a shadow Minister so I was hopeful that it might lead to an advance in SEND provision in schools, but things have obviously not gone to plan. The new SEND Green Paper implies by its very existence that something has gone wrong.

Let us look at some numbers. Pupils with SEN are less likely to meet the expected standards on reading, writing and maths by the end of key stage 2, with only 22% of children with SEN achieving that compared with 74% of those with no recorded SEN. This continues at GCSE with only 27% of SEN children achieving a grade 4 or above in English and maths compared with 71% of those with no recorded SEN. In 12 years of a Conservative Government, those with SEND have endured a broken system, leaving a lasting impact on their futures.

As we know, special educational needs and disabilities are sometimes invisible, making them hard to identify and support. Many working class children are categorised as poor readers, not because they might have dyslexia but because they come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Others who might have dyslexia but do not have the money to access private assessment and diagnosis might never get the support that they need. Far from levelling up, this Government imprison those children in lower expectations.

As we make the necessary strides in special educational needs assessment, so the system supporting those needs faces greater strain on capacity. This is all about cost. I hope that that is not the reason for the conspicuous absence from the Government’s recent Green Paper of the three Ds: dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia. The Government finally recognise the need for new high-level alternative provision, but I implore them to expand their priorities to specific learning difficulties. They can have a profound effect on a child’s educational development, and without wider assessments we can only guess at the incidence rates of the conditions. In the meantime, children will struggle through their school years and lose the chance to fulfil their potential. That is not to say that those with specific learning difficulties are less able than their peers. On the contrary, neurodiverse individuals exhibit problem solving, lateral thinking and innovation skills often in excess of those exhibited by neurotypical individuals.

This year I was proud to be involved in the launch of Neurodiversity in Business, an initiative that at last count has seen more than 100 companies across the country, including the likes of Deloitte and the Bank of England, championing neurodiverse workers. They recognise the unique skills and benefits that neurodivergent employees bring to an organisation, and that is to be greatly welcomed and encouraged as it is so true. I welcome the Government’s consultation on SEND provision, and I will certainly engage with the consultation in due course. I encourage all colleagues and organisations in the sector to do the same.

On another topic, I would like to take a moment to draw the House’s attention to food insecurity. We know that families are struggling with the cost of living crisis—a crisis that is only going to get worse. More adults are reporting skipping meals—57% more in April than in January—and more children are unable to access nutritious food. At the same time public sector caterers, who make up an important part of the protection against food insecurity, are facing supply chain disruptions and what have been described to me as stock price explosions. It is getting more expensive to run the industrial kitchens in our schools, hospitals and prisons. It is therefore getting so much harder to ensure that services offer the same nutritious food.

The Government are allowing food insecurity to become worse, allowing standards to decline and doing nothing to prevent a public health crisis along the way. This is happening on their watch and there was nothing in the Queen’s Speech to address it. That means it will only get worse until we have a change of Government to one with the will and the plan to grow the economy and be on the side of working people.

A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab) [V]]

I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom). It has been a true pleasure to work with her for over a decade on early years policy and, most recently, on the Government’s early years review, which she kindly invited me to sit on. I am pleased that she has once again raised this very important issue today and at the commitment she has secured in the Queen’s Speech, which I hope, as she does, delivers all the recommendations in her review. It has also been a pleasure to co-chair with the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson), who I shadowed when he was the Children and Families Minister, the Early Years Commission, which is set to publish its findings soon.

As we know, the first 1,001 critical days are so crucial to a child’s development, and I will continue as long as I have breath in my body to campaign for the early years to be prioritised and properly funded, as I am sure the right hon. Lady will. However, I want to focus the bulk of my remarks on another very important issue. While the pandemic has been more than a challenge for all policy areas, nowhere has it impacted harder than in our health services. I want to raise this today because the legacy of any legislation now will have a lasting impact on our recovery towards the brighter future we all want to see. We have the opportunity now to rebuild our NHS after this devastating blow, so that generations to come have world-class healthcare there for them when they need it. Yet sadly, there was no mention of cancer services in particular in the Queen’s Speech, which is a terrible omission.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ovarian cancer, I work closely with other cancer APPG chairs to raise the devastating issues facing our cancer services. Never has that work been of greater importance than across this last year, yet, sadly, BBC statistics shared today suggest there are 45,000 missing cancer patients, meaning fewer people are going to their GP to be checked out or seek referrals. They are also missing vital screening services. Of that number, almost 10,000 are missing breast cancer patients. People need to know that it is safe to go to get checked. Not only is it safe; it is encouraged.

Despite fewer people presenting to their GPs in the first place as a result of the pandemic, worrying trends have appeared along the treatment chain. Macmillan’s research demonstrates that, as of February this year, the number of people being seen by a specialist after an urgent referral had dropped by 8% from February 2020. The disruption to services across the last 14 months has created a backlog of people receiving their first treatment for cancer, which currently stands at 38,500 people. That is despite the strongest efforts of our tremendously hard-working NHS staff.

Despite the urgent nature of the 62-day period from diagnosis to treatment, thousands of patients have had to wait longer. The lowest number of people missing that waiting time period was 16,111, and that was in November last year, but that was still 44% higher than pre-pandemic numbers. We all know that NHS staff have worked their hardest and could not have done more, but even if cancer services could now operate at 110% of pre-pandemic capacity, we are looking at more than 15 months to clear that backlog, and that is without the 45,000 missing cancer patients all turning up all of a sudden. So this just is not possible or sustainable with the extensive challenges that lie ahead. The Government must do everything they can to put patients first, clear that backlog, find those missing patients and bring down the growing waiting lists. But how?

Concerns have been raised by the Royal College of Radiologists that delays to scans have been worsened by a 33% shortfall in that workforce. It is unfortunately growing clearer that our cancer workforce are suffering and need immediate attention from the Government. Alongside other cancer APPG chairs, I was happy to sign a funding statement in March which called on the Government to recognise that NHS services need resources to super-boost capacity above pre-pandemic levels. The Government really must act now to make sure that this does not spiral into a greater health crisis and to protect lives. The way to achieve that is with a plan that ensures the long-term resuscitation of the cancer workforce—a plan that will recruit and train, bring jobs and maintain the standards of care that people deserve nationwide.

Cancer was left out of the Chancellor’s Budget in March. The backlog was not mentioned in the Queen’s Speech. I ask the Government to make sure that the other c-word is not forgotten once more.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab) [V]]

I have spoken before about growing up on free school meals and how important they are to children and families, but also about the stigma that was palpable and what it actually felt like to grow up poor. Colleagues will know that I am incredibly passionate about this issue. I set up, and have chaired for over 10 years, the all-party parliamentary group on school food.

Progress has been made. However, the images of some of the food parcels given to families in the past few weeks have shocked us all and rightly shamed the companies that provided them. Families deserve dignity and should expect high-quality food to ensure that their children continue to eat healthy food throughout the school closures. But stale bread, browning bananas, peppers and tomatoes cut in half and processed cheese do not meet those expectations for the standards of meals in our schools. There is no silver bullet for replacing the lovely hot, healthy meals that children were due to receive in school, but the Government must accept that families have agency to go shopping and buy and prepare the food that works for them by themselves. Extensive research by the World Bank in all world economies, not just the poorest, proves that cash transfers work and that concerns around their use on “temptation goods” are “unfounded”. We should trust parents to do right by their children and give them the means to do so when schools are closed.

Food and access to it is going to be so important to our covid recovery. That is why, when children return to school, I want them to return to the hot and healthy meals they need and deserve. That means the Government supporting the schools’ food supply chain and making a commitment that we will not see any move away from hot and healthy free school meals when schools reopen. Free school meals have been hard fought for for over 115 years, and it is crucial that we protect them for children and families of the future who will need them too.

On Friday, I met headteachers in my constituency who told me of children working well into the night because their parents had to use the only laptop in the house for work during the day. In other homes, children are expected to share a device with five siblings. How can we hope for our young people to develop when we feed them poorly and force them to learn on one sixth of a shared computer with limited data access? The Government really must do better, and they have a chance tonight to accept that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

The Education Endowment Foundation has produced a very good guide for schools on how to use the pupil premium in the most effective way to narrow the attainment gap. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spelled out the fact that we have closed the attainment gap by 13% in primary schools and 9% in secondary schools. Between 2011 and 2018, there was an 18 percentage point increase in the proportion of disadvantaged young people taking the EBacc combination of core academic GCSE subjects; the subjects that provide the widest opportunities in later education, training and career choices.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

7. What his policy is on free school meals.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Michelle Donelan)]

Free school meals play an important role in ensuring that disadvantaged children receive a healthy nutritious meal every school day. I assure the hon. Member and the House that the Government are committed to the provision of free school meals for children from homes that are disadvantaged on low incomes—it is of the utmost importance.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank the Minister for stating the Government’s policy on free school meals and getting that on the record. Given how beneficial free school meals are for reducing inequalities and improving children’s health and attainment, will she mirror Labour policy and extend free school meals to all primary school children?

[Michelle Donelan]

We already provide free school meals to 1.3 million children and 1.4 million infants. This policy is targeted at the most disadvantaged, which we personally believe is right, as it ensures that they have the very best start in life and a nutritious meal every school day.