Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of the Holiday activities and food programme on children's diets.

The department is investing over £200 million a year in the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme, providing healthy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families, benefiting their heath, wellbeing and learning through the provision of healthy free meals, nutritional education, and physical activities on a daily basis.

Good nutrition is essential to children’s health, development and their ability to fulfil their potential in life. The department’s HAF clubs ensure that children have access to healthy food and enriching activities throughout the school holidays.

The department’s external evaluation of the 2021 HAF summer programme found that children attending HAF reported significantly higher levels of participation in both outdoor and indoor sports and games than their non-HAF peers during a normal week. Children attending HAF were also significantly more likely to feel that they ate healthy foods over the summer. Evidence suggests HAF helped children feel more socially connected, taught them new things, and that they felt safe and enjoyed their HAF experience.

The evaluation also found that HAF local authority coordinators reported almost three-quarters of a million (730,000) children attended a HAF summer holiday club in person, of which 616,000 children’s places were directly funded by HAF and 498,000 were eligible for benefits-related FSM. The evaluation also indicated that two-thirds of HAF attendees lived in one of the 30% most deprived areas across the country.