On Tuesday the 7th of May, Sharon Hodgson spoke in a Westminster Hall debate on ‘Provision of Free School Meals’, which was organised by Sharon Hodgson MP, and School Food APPG member Munira Wilson MP.

> Click on this link here, or on the picture below, to watch Sharon Hodgson's speech in the Westminster Hall debate >



Read Sharon Hodgson MP's contribution to the debate in Hansard here >

5.05pm

Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Labour)

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I want to thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing today’s debate and for her excellent opening speech setting the scene. The topic of school food—and specifically free school meals—has been an incredibly important one for me throughout my parliamentary career. In fact, I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, which I set up in 2010, and I am pleased to say that a number of colleagues here today are also very important members.

As we have heard, in the UK our devolved nations each have their own individual free school meal offers. In Scotland, all primary school children, regardless of family income, are eligible for free school meals and all secondary school students are subject to a means-tested offer. In Wales, all children who attend mainstream primary schools are eligible for a free school meal. In Northern Ireland there is no universal offer; however, the eligibility criteria for the means-tested offer includes families with an annual taxable income of up to £16,190 or net earnings of under £14,000 a year, which is almost twice as high as the same offer in England, and means that around 30% of the entire school population are eligible. The levels of poverty across the north-east, and indeed in other parts of England, are the same as in Northern Ireland, and yet such different levels of means-testing are used. That is just unfair.

In England, all children in reception, year 1 and year 2 currently receive a hot, healthy meal each day. Universal infant free school meals is a policy I am very proud of, having worked with Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent on the school food plan that helped convince them to put universal primary free school meals as one of their recommendations, which, as we heard, the former Deputy Prime Minister then enacted when they were in the coalition Government, which I think we are all very happy still exists to this day—the free school meals, not the coalition Government! However, from year 3 onwards, provision of free school meals is means-tested. Only children in households in England who receive universal credit and earn less than £7,400—excluding benefit payments—are eligible for free school meals. On that note, in today’s short speech I will focus on how we must change the policy in England. For too long, England has been the poor relation. It is just not good enough. We have the least generous offers around school food, and the highest rates of children in poverty who are ineligible for free school meals.

We must also think about the quality of the food that we are providing to our students. The school food standards are a fantastic set of regulations that provide guidance on the nutritional quality and variety of food that children should have access to at school. When they are followed correctly, the school meal offers are some of the best in the world, and I work with parliamentarians around the world, so I speak with some authority on this. However, sadly some schools struggle to do so, and they need support. In England there is no consistent assessment, monitoring or reporting of whether schools are meeting the standards for school food. There is no ring-fencing of funding, either. This means that the quality is very variable, with some children benefiting from nutritious, delicious food while others receive lower-quality meals.

We must discuss the structural issues surrounding provision that make delivering school meals unsustainable. For example, as has been talked about already, the funding per meal for universal infant free school meals is far too low. It is just £2.53 across most of England, despite the average meal cost exceeding this. The funding must be raised to £3 per meal to adequately cover the cost of the ingredients and the labour costs for school food. We all eat in restaurants; we know the prices have gone up. Schools are being asked to do an impossible thing at the moment. The rising cost of these meals and the dwindling funding means that, inevitably, quality is going to slip.

We need to revolutionise eligibility. I truly believe that the best school meal offer is a universal free school meal offer, as we have seen with the triumph of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s universal free school meal offer for primary school children in London. It seems popular as well—I think he won, didn’t he? But I understand that the road to a universal offer is a journey. That is why I am calling on the Government to, without delay, expand eligibility to all children whose parents and carers receive universal credit, so that we can begin to tackle the horrifying reality that, as we have heard, 900,000 children living in poverty are currently ineligible, according to the Child Poverty Action Group.

The next step on this road is to implement automatic enrolment as soon as possible. Local authorities like Sheffield are leading the way on this already, and prove it works. Every eligible child should be eligible from day one. This is not an expensive change. The Government already know exactly who is eligible and who is not, so families should not need to apply. It needs to be automatic from when the child is enrolled in school, or when their circumstances change. That will help schools too because they will get extra pupil premium, and that can then unlock access to resources and support as well as a hot meal for these children.

Free school meals are foundational to a fair and equal school experience. When we provide them, they leave inequality at the school gate and liberate children from the injustice of the haves and the have-nots.

5.11pm

End

Read the full debate in Hansard here >

At today’s Westminster Hall debate on Food Waste and Food Redistribution, I highlighted how tackling food waste is key to ending food insecurity and creating a sustainable food system.



Thank you to Company Shop for all the fantastic redistribution work you do in Washington, and across the UK.

Sharon Hodgson MP's report - Nov-Dec - 2023 number 166

Click on the picture above to read Sharon Hodgson MP's report

(Image courtesy: School Food Matters twitter, 2023)

Good afternoon everyone!

I’m delighted to be here today with you all in Leeds at the 2023 APSE Seminar.

I am also the Private Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer

However, what brings me here today, is that I am also the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food, which I set up in 2010 and have chaired ever since.

The APPG is made up of parliamentarians from all parties, charities, local authorities, food distributors, caterers, academics and many, many more, and APSE, with the fantastic Vickie Hacking, provide secretariat duties to the APPG.

The APPG provides a cross-party parliamentary platform to keep school food, child hunger and food education on the political agenda in the UK Parliament, campaigning to ensure that children receive high quality meals in and outside of school.

Across the last year, public sector catering has suffered through a really tough time, with skyrocketing energy costs and record inflation levels impacting heavily upon food and staffing costs.

Catering teams working across schools, hospitals, the care sector and universities have had to amend menus, tighten budgets and work really hard to ensure that quality food is still delivered in what seems like an ever-worsening situation.

Last time I spoke to you, we were awaiting the long term policy ambitions from the Government in response to Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy review. But as you know the Government failed to deliver much more than a new slogan.

The Government acknowledged that the food industry is bigger than the automotive and aerospace industries combined, yet all they did was re-announce existing funding in a series of vague intentions, lacking in any concrete proposals to tackle the major issues facing our country.

At the very moment the UK food system is exposed as being quite fragile under pressure from world events, the Government proved itself be tired and out of ideas, failing to deliver on the ambition that our country needs.

In Henry’s own words, it didn’t set out a clear vision as to why we have the problems we have now, and it didn't set out what needs to be done.

This was a disappointing way to start the summer, as gas prices and food prices began to rise. And then things took a turn for the worse, still.

The Government in crises, a merry-go-round of new ministers including prime ministers, policy at a standstill, mounting record levels of inflation, basically 12 weeks of political gambles, causing so much chaos that our economy tanked... families across the country started to really be impacted by this crisis which was frankly made in Downing Street.

And yet, public sector caterers continued to put food on the table – an increasingly difficult task, as our APPG heard at our meeting in September.

The results of an APPG survey launched by APSE found that, in just three months, close to 50% of school meal providers surveyed had experienced an increase in food costs of at least 20%.

Nearly 60% reported that utility costs increased, with one respondent noting a five-fold increase in utility costs.

These stats will only have worsened since the survey was carried out last year. While inflation is decreasing slowly, very slowly, food prices continue to rise; there is alarming situation facing school food providers, with food prices increasing from 10-30% across all areas.

This has meant some catering managers are now having to – reluctantly – turn their backs on local procurement. And in some extreme cases, I’ve heard that the number of hot meals are being reduced, and the high quality ingredients are having to be switched out for cheaper alternatives.

I know schools are doing all they can to make sure costs aren’t loaded on to paid-for meals. But the average price of a school meal will rise to £2.65 this year meaning more children will be at risk of being denied access to a hot, healthy meal.

In our survey, 60% of respondents said that dinner money debt had increased – that’s children coming to school with no money to pay for a lunch.  Just under 50% reported that they had seen a decrease in the number of paid meals being served.

These are the impacts of the wider cost of living crisis, affecting families who are above the threshold for a free school meal.

That takes us to the main policy push from the sector across 2022; campaigns for the extension of free school meal eligibility really gained traction.

More than 800,000 children living in poverty in England are currently ineligible for free school meals, due to having a household income of over £7,400 before benefits.  These families may be forced into the decision between feeding their children or paying their energy bills.

(Thankfully,) in Scotland and now also Wales, the roll out of Universal Primary Free School Meals has continued, helping to combat food insecurity facing children in those devolved nations.  I know new challenges for providers have appeared with this roll out, and I’m looking forward to learning about them, but overall this is a really positive step for school food policy, making sure more children receive those healthy, nutritious meals.

All of us here will know too well that hungry children cannot learn.

Yet the UK Government has continued to have its head stuck in the sand relating to England.

That’s really disappointing, when the sector has been so strong and unified in message.

While there are elements of quick relief that could be provided - funding increases for example - school caterers and the wider public sector needs more than that.  We need to make sure that long-term these issues are fixed, so that public sector caterers are never using the words “existential” again.

13 years of managed decline of public services has left us vulnerable to those “shocks”, like Ukraine and Covid before it.  We need more than just last minute frenzies of sticking-plaster politics.  We need to be more resilient.

That means taking on low pay and workforce issues, delivering a serious long-term plan to get the economy growing again, making sure that working people don’t pay the costs of the Tory cycle of doom.

We need to start making those fairer choices.  And in this moment of chaos, I know that there is a growing impatience for a change in the way this country is governed.

And with an election en route – this year or next, who knows – it's time to really get demanding, and bring forward the enthusiasm for school meals.

I know that experts and campaigners – some of you in this room today – will keep mounting the pressure upon the Government, and of course the opposition parties too. And know I am doing my bit in this regard also.

I know that without the people in this room who work so hard to keep public services afloat, that this country would grind to a halt.  The issues that matter to you need to be in the public eye, and they need to be at the door of the Government.

I hope to be able to work with many of you going forward in the weeks, months and years to come.  I’m sure I will.

Thank you. 

Winners of the APPG Excellence in School Food Awards and the APSE Soft Facilities Management Innovation Awards 2023

Sharon Hodgson MP's report - Nov-Dec 2022 number 156

Click on the picture above to read Sharon Hodgson MP's report - Nov-Dec 2022 number 156

Sharon Hodgson MP has today (Tuesday 16th June) welcomed the Government’s U-turn on funding free school meals over the summer holidays.

(Photo from National School Meals Week, 2018)

This U-turn follows the Labour Party’s ‘Holidays without Hunger’ campaign and Manchester United, Marcus Rashford’s letter to all MPs calling for the U-turn.

3,616 children in Washington and Sunderland West are eligible for Free School Meals and will benefit from the extension of funding for free school meals provision over the summer holidays.

With the added pressure of the Coronavirus crisis plunging families into deeper poverty and social distancing as well as added pressures raising questions on whether the usual holiday lunch schemes may run, many families are rightly concerned about how they will afford food during the summer holidays.

Sharon, who has been campaigning on free school meals since becoming an MP in 2005, said:

“Like Marcus Rashford, I grew up on free school meals, so I know how important they are to families on low incomes.

“That is why I set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food in 2010 to campaign for better free school meal provision.

“This isn’t a new problem, we know that some children go hungry during the summer holidays in ‘normal’ times. But we aren’t in ‘normal’ times.

“I welcome the Government’s U-turn on this, but they should never have delayed on this. They were shamed into backing down instead of doing the right thing in the first place.

“Children are at a heightened risk of going hungry this summer as the Covid-19 crisis hits family incomes, and charities and food banks struggle to provide the same level of holiday support.

“I will continue to join MPs, charities, organisations and Local Authorities to campaign to keep the importance of free school meals and holiday hunger on the agenda at all times, not just during a pandemic.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors
1. Nearly 1.3 million children in England are eligible for free school meals which are usually provided in school during term-time. However, while schools have been closed during the Covid-19 pandemic a voucher scheme has been established instead. Schools are also able to provide alternative provision, such as food packs, which can be claimed for from the Department of Education.

 
2. The voucher scheme provides £15 worth of vouchers a week per child eligible for free school meals which can be redeemed in the following supermarkets: Aldi, Asda, M&S, McColl’s, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools

 
3. In England’s poorest areas, summer holiday hunger schemes are being starved of cash, leaving many children short of food (2019) https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/aug/14/uk-holiday-hunger-schemes-deprived-children-summer

4. Labour’s ‘Holidays without Hunger’ campaign launched on Sunday 14th June. For more information click here: http://labour.org.uk/holidayswithouthunger/

As the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food (APPG), Sharon has today written to Sean Harford, National Director of Schools at Ofsted about healthy eating in schools.

Click the above picture to see the entire letter

In 2015, Sean wrote to Sharon to say that Ofsted was committed to giving wellbeing, health and healthy eating a more prominent place in inspections. However, four years on, the new draft Ofsted inspection framework and handbooks do not mention healthy eating, school food or food education.

On Tuesday 9th October 2018, Sharon Hodgson MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on School Food, presented CATERed with the 2018 APPG Excellence in School Food Award.

The Award was presented to CATERed at the Educatering Excellence Awards at London’s Royal Garden Hotel.

This was the first time the APPG on School Food has presented an award, and it is hoped that next year more schools, caterers, charities and individuals will apply.

The application process, which was facilitated by APSE, required applicants to provide an executive summary of their project, background, and what has been achieved over the last 12 months. Applicants were then asked to have their application supported by a Member of Parliament, through a letter of support.

17 applications were received, all supported by MPs across the political spectrum, and a shortlist of 3 was established by the judges: Sharon Hodgson MP, Roberta Blackman-Woods MP and Gillian Keegan MP.

The finalists were: Peel Brow School, School Food Matters and CATERed.

After presenting the award Sharon said:

“Everyone who applied for this award is doing amazing work for school food, and I cannot thank all of them enough for all that they do each and every day to ensure that our children have access to a healthy meal.

“I am so pleased that my parliamentary colleagues were also able to get involved in the awards by offering a supportive letter to applicants, I am sure that they will have also learned a lot from doing so and I have encouraged them to go and visit the school or charity they have supported so that they can experience the fantastic work they do for themselves.

“It was a genuine pleasure to present CATERed with the first APPG Excellence in School Food Award, they were very deserving winners and I hope that they continue to keep up the good work in Plymouth, and also set an example for other cities around the UK.”

Brad Pearce of CATERed said:

“Thank you to Sharon and the judges for the recognition.

“It was an honour to win the inaugural APPG Excellence in School Food Award.

“At CATERed we work collaboratively to improve the overall school dining experience for all. Delivering improved service quality, reduced costs, increased efficiencies and economies of scale giving a stronger financial base.

“The Big supporting The Small is our guiding principle to ensure that children and young people across the City can access great tasting, locally sourced, seasonal and freshly prepared hot school food. With our schools as shareholders CATERed believe in Feeding Ambitions, making a Difference and supporting Every Child, Every Time.”

As the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food, Sharon spoke in a debate on the Government's proposals to introduce a £7,400 net income threshold for families on Universal Credit and eligibility for free school meals. In her speech, Sharon raised concerns that the threshold would see over 1 million children in poverty miss out on a free school meal.  

You can read the full debate here: Universal Credit and Free School Meals

You can read Sharon's full speech below:

Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab):

These regulations will affect millions of families up and down the country, so it is only right that we are able to discuss them today. The Government consulted from November to January on introducing an earnings threshold that would restrict free school meals to families with net earnings under £7,400 per annum. The consultation received 8,981 responses. However, the Government excluded 8,421 of those responses from their analysis, meaning that fewer than 4% of respondents agreed with the Government. Surely that goes against every rule of public consultations. Talk about statistics being used against vulnerable people!

In 2010, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions promised in the White Paper on universal credit that it would

“ensure that work always pays and is seen to pay. Universal Credit will mean that people will be consistently and transparently better off for each hour they work and every pound they earn.”

Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab):

I am glad that my hon. Friend has picked out that point. She will have heard the Secretary of State saying that jobcentres would advise people not to take extra work or to get a pay rise because they would end up worse off. Is that not absolutely contrary to the whole principle of universal credit that she has just read out?

Mrs Hodgson:

Yes, absolutely. We know that the Government are today reneging on the former Secretary of State’s commitment.

Free school meals are worth far more to a family than £400 a year per child. That might not seem to be a lot to some hon. Members, but to those families it is an absolute lifeline. By introducing a £7,400 threshold for eligibility, the Government are forcibly creating a cliff edge that will be detrimental to families, especially children. To give just one example, someone with three children in their family who earns just below the £7,400 threshold is set to lose out on £1,200-worth of free school meals if they work only a few extra hours or get a pay rise. The Opposition’s proposal would simply remove the huge cliff edge and the work disincentive for families who most need support. It would take away the barrier to working extra hours or seeking promotion. Our proposals would therefore make work pay. The Government’s proposal is in fact the new 16 hours, which they said was a disincentive.

Mike Hill (Harlepool) (Lab):

Is my hon. Friend aware that in Hartlepool, where universal credit is not being rolled out—it is already in—more than 1,000 children are being denied free school meals on the basis of the new proposal?

Mrs Hodgson:

Yes. We can all cite the numbers from our constituencies. Even Conservative Members need to think about what they are doing to some of the poorest children in their constituencies. In the example I just quoted, the family’s annual wages would need to increase from £7,400 to almost £11,000 to make up for ​what they would lose by rising above the eligibility cliff edge. That problem did not occur under the old tax credit system, because that provided an offsetting income boost at the point at which free school meals were withdrawn. However, there is no equivalent mitigation under universal credit.

The Children’s Society has been much maligned today and has been cited as giving duff statistics—Conservative Members should be ashamed of themselves. It estimates that the cliff edge will mean that a million children in poverty will miss out on free school meals once universal credit is fully rolled out. They will miss out on something that is crucial for their physical and mental development.

The Government have said that 50,000 more children will benefit by the end of the roll-out in 2022, when the transitional protections are at capacity, but I and many others struggle to understand how that can be the case. Parliamentary questions tabled by my hon. Friends and others have gone unanswered, and the Government cannot just pluck figures out of the air, as they claim so many others have done. At least we can back up our claims with evidence from the Children’s Society, Gingerbread, the Child Poverty Action Group and Citizens Advice, all of which agree that this statutory instrument would take free school meals away from a million future children—[Interruption.] It would. If the SI does not come into force, a million more children will receive free school meals—[Interruption.] Conservative Members can shake their heads all they like.

During my recent Westminster Hall debate, I offered Ministers a solution that would mean that all children in universal credit households would continue to receive free school meals. As somebody asked earlier, I can say that it would cost half a billion pounds—not a huge cost to feed over a million of the poorest children. My proposal would see around 1.1 million more children in years 3 and above from low-income families receiving free school meals compared with under this change.

Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con):

If we were to maintain free school meals for absolutely everybody on universal credit, does the hon. Lady think it would be right to prioritise those coming from the legacy tax credit system, who could be earning up to £50,000 a year, instead of opening up eligibility and getting free school meals to more children in poverty?

Mrs Hodgson:

I am running out of time, so— [Interruption.] Perhaps Conservative Members would let me finish before they use up all my time. I was going to say that while I cannot go into the full details, because of the time, I understand from the Children’s Society that that is a small number of people—up to 40,000—and that those people are often in large families with severely disabled children. The large amount of money is down to how much they receive for those children. It is disingenuous to use that as an example and to make out that all those families are receiving £50,000.

The Minister claimed yesterday that my proposal would result in around half of all pupils becoming eligible, increasing the figure to 3.3 severely million children. Even the much-cited Channel 4 FactCheck article states that our proposal would extend to 1.1 million children, making the total 1.8 million children. When we talk about facts, Conservative Members need to get their facts right. Where do the extra 1.5 million children come from?​

Sharon Hodgson MP's report - Jun-Jul 2017 number 95

 

 Click on picture above to read Sharon Hodgson MP's report - News from Westminster - Jun-Jul 2017 number 95