Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of ingredient costs on local authority school catering services; and what steps her Department is taking to help support local authorities to work with surplus food redistribution organisations to reduce the cost of school meal provision.

The department recognises the pressures that some schools and suppliers may be facing due to rising costs. We are working closely with the school food sector to understand the wider school food system to support the delivery of the free school meals expansion, and the upcoming School Food Standards update.

As part of the Good Food Cycle, the government is currently assessing what food the public sector buys and where it comes from. In due course, this will provide us with detailed insights on the extent to which public sector settings are serving food from local and sustainable sources and what more can be done to support local procurement.