Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has (a) commissioned, (b) received and (c) published a report on the outcomes of spending in England’s schools of income raised through the Soft Drink Industry Levy; and if he will make a statement.

The Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL) came into effect in April 2018 with the aim of tackling childhood obesity by encouraging suppliers to reduce the sugar content of drinks. The Government has not commissioned a report on the use of the SDIL, and its revenues are not formally linked to any individual spending programme, but the Government has supported activity to promote childhood health and wellbeing.

The Department’s budgets were increased to allow for the doubling of the PE and sport premium to £320 million from the 2017/18 academic year. The Department has since maintained it at that level to support primary schools to make additional and sustainable improvements to the quality of their PE, sport and physical activity provision.

Details of how the PE and sport premium is allocated can be found here:

• School-level allocations are available at: https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/single-funding-statement/latest/start.
• Allocations from previous years are on the National Archives’ website: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/search/result/?q=pe+and+sport+premium.

The Department also offered the £100 million healthy pupils capital fund in 2018/19. This was a one-year fund. Allocations for each local authority and multi-academy trust, who were eligible to receive a direct allocation, were published in March 2018.

Details are available here: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20190212204720/https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-allocations.

Details of successful healthy pupils capital fund projects funded through the Condition Improvement Fund have been published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/condition-improvement-fund-2018-to-2019-outcome.

Funding of nearly £22 million was allocated between 2017 and 2019 through an essential life skills (ELS) programme, to enable disadvantaged children and young people living in some of the most deprived parts of the country to participate in regular extra-curricular activities. The ELS programme targeted disadvantaged children and young people aged 5-18, across 12 Opportunity Areas. Areas received £7.95 million in 2017/18 and £13.8 million in 2018/19.

Details of the grants are published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/essential-life-skills-grant-s31-grant-determination-and-letters.

The Department invested up to £35 million to fund the national schools breakfast programme over 3 years from March 2018. The Government is committed to continuing support for school breakfast clubs. We are investing up to £24 million to continue our national programme until the end of the summer term in 2023. This funding will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas, meaning that thousands of children from low-income families will be offered free, nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing, and readiness to learn.