Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of updating the School Food Standards to remove the mandatory servings of meat, including fish, and dairy.

The Department believes that the current school food standards provide a robust yet flexible framework to ensure that pupils in England continue to receive high quality and nutritious food. The framework should build healthy eating habits for life.

The Department’s focus is on promoting compliance with the school food standards. The Department is keeping this under review. In February 2022, the Levelling Up White Paper outlined several measures the Department is implementing to strengthen adherence. These include piloting work with the Foods Standards Agency, investing up to £200,000 in a pilot Governor Training Scheme, and encouraging schools to complete a statement on their school websites setting out their whole school approach to food.