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Education and Inspections Bill

The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, is a member of the Food Standards Agency, and I am sorely tempted to leave her to reply to the debate; she has given a partial reply already. We have of course consulted the Food Standards Agency as we have developed the work that we have taken forward with the School Meals Trust—on which we are spending a very large sum to ensure that schools have much better information on best nutritional standards, how they go about improving the quality of school meals, and how the resources available to them have been increased to provide precisely the balanced diet that she recommended. We are spending £220 million over three years on the School Meals Trust. As Members of the Committee will have realised, we are engaged in a programme of work that has had the close co-operation of Jamie Oliver, who has closely at heart all the interests that were set out. Perhaps I can take the amendments one by one. On Amendment No. 214A, we entirely agree that food standards should apply to academies, and the requirement for academies to meet nutritional standards will be made through amending the funding agreements. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, mentioned academy design. We are not removing the scope for sponsors of academies to play a substantial part in the design. However, we are making it possible for academies to be built and delivered through the Building Schools for the Future programme, which we believe will promote cost-effectiveness and best practice in the delivery of academies. However, that will be in the context of sponsors still playing a role in the design—as indeed do schools within the Building Schools for the Future programme at large. There is not a single template that they have to observe. Amendment No. 214B deals with the provision of school milk. The decision on whether to provide school milk rests with local authorities and schools. Where milk is provided, schools and local authorities can, if they choose, reclaim part of the cost of that milk from the EU school milk subsidy scheme. The noble Baroness mentioned the reduced subsidy levels available under the scheme after January 2001. Ministers from my department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Department of Health agreed jointly to meet the costs of the annual £1.5 million shortfall that these EU changes would create. This decision was taken to avoid any increase in the cost of milk to local authorities, and thereby lessen the risk of reduced provision. We believe that local authorities and schools are best placed to decide whether their pupils should be offered milk and whether to claim any subsidy on that milk. We do not wish to remove that discretion. However, the new school food standards will specify milk as one of the few drinks that local authorities and schools will be permitted to provide, and more schools may voluntarily choose to offer milk to their pupils in consequence. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is quite right about the importance of breakfast clubs, which we highlight too, and the provision of breakfasts, which is now increasingly taking place in schools. Of course, the provision of a balanced diet is essential within a school. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said that she was starting to come to terms with the regulations and guidance in this area. I have pages of it here which I could read out if the Committee wished, but I do not think that it does. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that there are substantial references to balanced diets, and not least to the importance of fruit and vegetables in schools as part of that. For example, the standards for school lunches will specify that there should be no fewer than two portions per day, at least one of which should be salad or vegetables and at least one of which should be fresh fruit, fruit tinned in juice or fruit salad. I could go on; it is all there. We have taken best professional advice on the establishment of those standards. I have partially covered Amendment No. 214C. The amendment would remove the power that would allow regulations to ban the provision of certain foods and drinks. We regard this as an important power as it gives us the flexibility we need to keep pace with the findings of new children’s dietary research, which might indicate that a revision of our nutritional standards would benefit specific groups of children. Finally, on Amendment No. 214D, I am glad to say that regulations will relax the standards to exempt schools from the requirement to follow the standards for food and drink provided at occasional fund-raising events. This can be done as an exception under new section 114A(1).