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School Meals

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Marshall, and to make my debut in an Adjournment debate. I also extend hearty congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Ms Johnson) on securing such an important and topical debate. I have listened to hon. Members’ views with great interest and I am glad that, whatever our differences—there are some small differences in emphasis in some areas—we all agree that childhood obesity is a matter of the utmost importance. The growth in obesity is an international problem, and this country is far from immune. The increasing prevalence of overweight children in England is among the worst in Europe. However, we are also the only country that has set itself a public target of halting the rise in childhood obesity, which we have pledged to do by 2010, within the public service agreement target. There is a wealth of evidence to illustrate the scale of the problem. Twenty-two per cent. of men and 23 per cent. of women in England are obese. The figures have trebled since the 1980s. Sixty-five per cent. of men and 56 per cent. of women—24 million adults—are overweight or obese. Obesity rates among children aged two to 10 are rising fast. They rose from 9.9 per cent. in 1995 to 14.3 per cent. in 2004, and they are rising fastest among eight to 10-year-olds. Recent studies show that more than 30 per cent. of boys and 31 per cent. of girls aged two to 15 are overweight or obese. The debate is therefore topical and important for our times. We are all aware that being overweight can lead to stigmatisation, including bullying, by childhood peers, but overweight and obese children can also suffer depression, poor social functioning, social exclusion and lower academic achievement. Those problems can easily continue into adulthood. In 2001, the National Audit Office estimated that obesity led to 9,000 premature deaths a year. Just as there are many adverse consequences of obesity, the problem has many causes. At one level, obesity is a simple problem: it results from an imbalance between energy consumed and energy expended. However, at the heart of the problem has been a profound change in the way in which we and our children live our lives. We value the material improvements in ordinary life over the past two generations, but just as convenience lifestyles lead us to consume more calories, so they lead us to using fewer calories along the way. We have more cars, TVs, computers and labour-saving devices at home and at work than ever before. The new technologies of home and the workplace ensure that we expend less physical effort on getting our work done. There is virtually no activity that cannot be done faster, easier and with less effort than was required 20, 10 or even just five years ago. We ride more and walk or cycle less. Many more children are driven to and from school today than was ever the case before. We and our children spend more of our leisure time sitting watching TV, on games consoles and using the internet, and less time in physical play. Children spend less time in unsupervised outdoor play today than they did in the past. Until we took action to reverse the trend, there had been a decline in the amount of sport and physical education that children took part in at school—activity that is now very much on the increase again. Those factors are bound up with the profound changes that we have experienced in the economy and society at large, but they do not tell the whole story on obesity. There are unique factors for every individual, and several factors are likely to be at work at the same time. One factor is physiological characteristics. We do not all use calories at the same rate; we all have slightly different metabolic rates. There are psychological characteristics: we each have different attitudes to food, exercise and lifestyle. There are environmental factors, such as family lifestyle. As children, we are very much influenced by our parents’ diet and behaviour, and socio-economic status. Children who have two overweight parents are six times more likely to be overweight than other children. The debate is about obesity and school food. I do not deny that what children eat at school is a major part of the issue, but it cannot be the only part of our strategy for tackling childhood obesity—it is not the only club in our bag. As we have discovered throughout the debate, there is no single simple cure for obesity. Preventing obesity is much easier than treating it. Prevention involves introducing the right eating and lifestyle habits in early childhood. Good nutrition and physical activity are essential for a developing child and are fundamental to energy balance and weight control. Families need to be educated and empowered through guidance that recognises the effects of poor eating and activity habits on their children’s health. The complex, multi-factorial nature of obesity is the reason why our strategy to tackle childhood obesity is shared across the Government. Our PSA target to halt the year-on-year rise in obesity in children under the age of 11 by 2010 is led by the Department of Health, but is a shared responsibility with the Department for Education and Skills, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government. That cross-departmental approach is essential to ensure that we have the widest possible engagement with the issue and that we join our resources and actions to halt the childhood obesity epidemic by working across many fronts simultaneously. The issue also involves antenatal and postnatal services and Sure Start, which my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned. Sure Start and children’s centres are important in getting children off to a healthy start in life, not least by establishing patterns of healthy eating and exercise as a foundation for the future. Parents and parents-to-be are being made aware of the crucial role that they play in determining the health and well-being of their child. Children’s centres have practice guidance that includes ideas on combating obesity. Those ideas will be further developed when the practice guidance is updated later this year. Our aim is that by 2009 all schools will have healthy school status and be focusing on healthy eating, PE, sport, emotional health and well-being and personal, social and health education. The healthy school initiative has been hugely popular with schools. Three-quarters of schools have started working towards healthy school status on a voluntary basis. Full-service extended schools are expanding the provision of health and fitness activities outside normal school hours for pupils, their families and the whole community. That can mean opening sports halls and playing fields to wider use, running fitness clubs, cookery skills courses and food co-ops to encourage healthy eating, with services tailored to the demands and needs of local communities. We have also come a long way in a relatively short time on play, with the Big Lottery Fund’s £155 million strategic play programme. In the time left, I shall deal specifically with food in schools. The debate was called to draw attention to the importance of school food in tackling childhood obesity. It is vital that children get the right messages about food and its importance to their health. Of course, for most children, most of their eating is done with their families, and I have outlined what we are doing to encourage healthy eating and healthy lifestyles in families. However, children’s experience of food at school is important in helping them to develop a healthy diet and a healthy attitude to food that I would want them to maintain into their adult lives. In partnership with schools, local authorities and parents, we are engaged in an ambitious three-year programme to effect nothing less than a transformation of school food. We are under no illusions about the scale of the task—we are trying to undo decades of neglect—but we are showing a level of commitment that has not been seen before. The announcement of new nutritional standards for school food is a major step in that programme. Those new minimum standards will be the bedrock of the drive towards better food in schools. We are keen to make real changes quickly, which is why the regulations governing food-based standards for school lunches will be introduced from September 2006. That answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Greg Mulholland). It means that, from September, new food-based standards will ban economy burgers from the school lunch table; deep-fried products such as chips will be limited to twice a week; and chocolate, crisps and sweetened fizzy drinks will no longer be available as part of school lunches, including from vending machines, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Even more stringent nutrition-based standards, stipulating the nutrients required for school lunches, will be in place for primary schools by no later than 2008 and for secondary schools by no later than 2009. To answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), I point out that tied into the funding for 2008 will be additional funding for those that ensure that those nutritional meals are hot rather than cold meals. All that will tie in with the healthy schools programme, which requires schools to adopt a whole school food policy that has been developed through wide consultation, and implemented, monitored and evaluated for impact. How will we implement the change programme? A lot has been said about finance and how we intend to finance that. Some £15 million is available until March 2008 for the School Food Trust to give independent support and advice to local authorities, schools and parents to improve the standard of school food. The trust will work with schools that want to provide healthier food in vending machines and tuck shops, and will work with industry players to identify effective ways of making changes to school food provision and educating pupils about making healthier choices. New qualifications and training are being developed for school caterers to help school cooks to understand what makes a healthier meal, and, importantly, how to market them to encourage young people to eat them. School food is now being considered as part of the regular Ofsted inspection process, with inspectors considering schools’ overall approaches to healthy eating. The Government have not subsidised the cost of school meals in England since 1967, when financial responsibility for the provision of school meals passed to local authorities. The cost of school meals is met through a combination of local authorities, parents, carers and, sometimes, schools. It is up to local authorities and schools to make decisions about how that money should be spent and the right balance of expenditure between the authority, schools and parents. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North makes a strong case about what has happened in Hull and the local benefits of that. Healthier, better quality food may mean increased costs, but many local authorities and schools are investing more money in school food provision. In Sunderland, for example, there has been an increased spend per pupil in primary and secondary schools of 10p and healthier menus have been created. Greenwich has just announced an increase in resources of over £600,000 in 2006-07 for school meals, and in Devon, there has been a £2.1 million cash boost to provide healthier and improved school meals. The issue may not always be about spending more; it may be about spending the money better. Perhaps efficiency savings could be made through better procurement arrangements and the more effective use of existing resources. Research shows that children spend over £549 million a year—on average, £1.75 per pupil per day—on junk food on the way to and from school. If children could be persuaded to eat more healthily, there could also be a saving to the parent's purse. There is a clear need for such a transformation to be driven at a local level, taking into account the wide range of circumstances in different parts of the country. That is why we are providing £220 million of additional money to help authorities and schools to improve their food. Last September, local authorities each received a share of a £30 million targeted school meals grant. They will receive a further share of £50 million in 2006-07 and another £50 million the next year. Consequent spending arrangements will be determined after the comprehensive review, so I cannot give an answer on that now. Schools are also getting other funds. In October 2005, schools received a share of £30 million to fund local improvements such as increased training and working hours for school cooks. A further £30 million will be shared out to schools in 2006-07 and another £30 million in 2007-08. I hope that that demonstrates that the Government are serious about putting extra money in. We have had an interesting debate on a vital subject. The World Health Organisation has called obesity a global epidemic and, in 2002, the chief medical officer called obesity a health time bomb. The Government are committed to defusing that obesity time bomb. We are under no illusion. That will be difficult, but I assure hon. Members on both sides of the House that we are determined to do that by providing the resources to do it and by working with local authorities to provide the best possible offer for local school children.