Thank you for contacting me about meat, fish and dairy in school meals.

Since I was elected as an MP back in 2015 I have been fighting with the Tory Government to take our children’s health seriously and offer free and healthy school meals.

We know the food system is continuing to break, with children being served poorer quality meals as a result of food shortages and rising costs. The truth is that the very existence of food poverty in this country is a scandal.There are children going to bed that are hungry because their families cannot afford to buy food.We need to fix the system to improve food security and meet the health and environmental challenges of our age, but I am concerned the Government does not have a plan to this end.

As you highlight, the National Food Strategy published a series of recommendations in July 2021. It included the recommendation that the requirement to serve meat three times a week be removed from the School Food Standards, but Ministers did not include this in their Government Food Strategy.

The Government Food Strategy could have been an opportunity to ensure that every family has access to healthy, affordable and sustainable food, but there were no concrete proposals to tackle the major issues facing this country.

I know a significant proportion of greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, and I am concerned the continuation of current agricultural practices is incompatible with international agreements to tackle climate change. I believe people in the farming sector overwhelmingly want to see farming conducted in a more sustainable way, but they need the right support.

In my view, we need to buy, sell and make more here in Britain to help our producers and tackle health and climate challenges. I am therefore supporting calls for changes to public procurement to help drive the purchase of locally sourced food and ensure schools and hospitals are stocked with more locally produced, healthy food.

More widely, I am also supporting calls for breakfast clubs in every primary school in England, as the first step towards a modern childcare system. This will not only ensure children have a healthy, balanced meal to start the day, but will also allow parents to get to work, which benefits the economy and improves family finances.