Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to monitor compliance with the updated school food standards; and what support she plans to provide to schools that are not currently meeting those standards.

The department is engaging with stakeholders on revising the school food standards, to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history.

School governors and trustees have a statutory duty to ensure compliance with the school food standards.

To improve understanding of the school food standards and give governing boards confidence to hold their school leaders to account, the department, along with National Governance Association, developed an online training course on school food for governors and trustees.

The department is also working with the Food Standards Agency on next steps following the findings of the compliance pilot run by the department and the Food Standards Agency during the 2022/23 academic year.

As with all aspects of the school food standards review, the department will keep our approaches to compliance under consideration.​