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8 Sept 2003 : Column 109W—continued
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
Food-related Activities
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills (1) who will fund the initiative by the Food Standards Agency to set up inspection teams for food-related activities in schools; [127723]
- (2) how many inspection teams are to be set up under the initiative by the Food Standards Agency for food-related activities in schools; [127724]
(3) what the terms of reference will be for the inspection teams that are set up under the initiative by the Food Standards Agency for food-related activities in schools; [127725]
(4) how many nutritionists will be on each inspection team set up under the initiative by the Food Standards Agency for food-related activities in schools; [127726]
(5) what food-related activities are to be inspected under the initiative by the Food Standards Agency to set up inspection teams for food-related activities in schools. [127727]
Mr. Miliband: The Department for Education and Skills and the Food Standards Agency will jointly and equally fund an exercise that will aim to look at best practice in the whole school approach to food and nutrition.
The exercise will involve five teams, each consisting of one OFSTED inspector and one nutritionist and will take place in a small illustrative sample of primary schools and early years' settings in England. The exercise will consider activities such as breakfast clubs, tuck shops, school lunches, vending machines, the taught curriculum, after-school cookery, or growing, clubs and water provision.
In total three or four nutritionists will be commissioned for the initiative and will work in one or more of the five inspection teams. Each one will accompany an OFSTED inspector on each school visit.
School Meals
Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the progress of the school meals research project. [127728]
Mr. Miliband: The Department for Education and Skills, in partnership with the Food Standards Agency, have commissioned research by Kings College London to assess whether food provided for school lunches in a selection of maintained secondary schools in England complies with statutory nutritional standards and associated guidance. The research, due to commence during the autumn school term 2003, will also aim to assess whether the food consumed by the children meets
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nutritional guidelines and to gather other relevant background information.
Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proposals he has to encourage the provision of free school meals; and what the average cost to pupils was of school meals in the last 12 months. [128239]
Mr. Miliband: The Education Act 1996 places a duty on all local education authorities in England to provide, on request, free school meals to eligible pupils. A similar duty is transferred to the governing body of all maintained schools in England that have a budgetary element for school meals delegated to them. Children whose parents receive the following support payments are entitled to receive free school meals: income support; income based jobseekers allowance; support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; child tax credit, provided they do not receive working tax credit and have an annual income, as assessed by the Inland Revenue, that does not exceed £13,230.
This Department does not collect information on the cost of meals provided by schools.
Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what quality controls are placed upon school meals; and what assessment has been made of the potential benefits to child health of healthy school meal provision. [128240]
Mr. Miliband: Regulations introduced in April 2001, set minimum nutritional standards for school lunches in maintained schools in England. The standards are based on the four main food groups pictorially represented in the Government's 'Balance of Good Health' diagram, which suggests the types and proportions of foods that make up a balanced diet. Food from the four groups: fruit and vegetables; meat, fish and non-dairy sources of proteins; starchy food; and milk and dairy, are required to be available in schools at lunchtime and allow pupils to choose healthy and enjoyable school lunches. It is the responsibility of local education authorities or, where a budgetary element for school meals is delegated to them, a school's governing body to ensure that the standards are met. School governing bodies and LEAs (as the employer) have a general responsibility for protecting the health and safety of staff and pupils. This responsibility would extend to the quality of school meals.
The Department for Education and Skills has not undertaken any specific assessment of the potential savings in child health in relation to healthy school meal provision.
Teenage Pregnancies
Tim Loughton: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many teenage pregnancies there were in (a) West Sussex and (b) England in (i) 2001–01, (ii) 2001–02 and (iii) 2002–03. [127547]
Ruth Kelly: I have been asked to reply.
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The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Tim Loughton, dated 8 September 2003:
- As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many teenage pregnancies there were in (a) West Sussex and (b) England in (i) 2000–01, (ii) 2001–02 and (iii) 2002–03.
- The numbers of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales are compiled routinely by calendar years. The latest year for which figures are available is 2001. For this purpose, a teenage pregnancy is defined as a conception to a girl aged under 18. This includes pregnancies resulting in live births, still births and abortions, but not miscarriages prior to 24 weeks gestation.
- The information available is shown in the table below.
| 2000 | 2001(12) | |
|---|---|---|
| West Sussex | 411 | 407 |
| England | 8,700 | 8,439 |
(12) Figures for 2001 are provisional
Youth Clubs
Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what funding is afforded to increasing youth club facilities and other projects aimed at getting children off the streets; and if he will make a statement on his policy on providing places for younger teenagers to go to socialise in the evenings. [128097]
Alan Johnson: Local authority youth services receive funding through the Education Formula Spending (EFS). This fund has a value of £513 million in 2003–04 and is an increase of 5.9 per cent. over 2002–03 budgets. In addition to EFS funds, the Government has made £10 million available to local authority youth services in each of the three years 2003–06 through the Transforming Youth Work Development Fund (TYWDF). With this resource, we want to see Local Authorities making good quality youth work provision available to all young people in the 13–19 age range. Many schools and Local Education Authorities (LEAs) offer learning activities after school as part of their study support provision. Funding for study support of £75 million is available this year through Standards Fund grant 206. National Voluntary Youth Organisations (NVYOs) receive funding to promote personal and social education. The NVYO Grant Scheme is a three year cycle of funding. There are 88 NVYOs running 98 projects which receive grants in the current cycle (2002–05) within a total budget of £18 million (£6 million a year). The grants cover up to 50 per cent. of the cost of the projects.
Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) aims to provide developmental and diversionary activities for 8–19 year olds from 2003 to 2006. It is supported by Departments and Agencies across Government providing funding allocations into a single pot. The total funding available for 2003–04 is £25 million. Funding for years two and three will be confirmed within the next two months.
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"Teacher Employment"
Mr. Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will publish the results of his Department's surveys of local education authorities entitled "Teacher Employment", conducted in May. [119909]
Mr. Austin Mitchell: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on recent redundancies of teachers in north-east Lincolnshire; and how many of these redundancies were attributed to insufficient school funds. [120061]
Paul Holmes: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his latest estimate is of the number of teacher redundancy notices that have been issued in 2003, broken down by local education authority; and if he will make a statement. [123042]
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what his latest estimate is of the number of teacher redundancy notices that have been issued in (a) Chesham and Amersham and (b) Buckinghamshire in 2003. [123913]
Tony Lloyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what redundancies of (a) teaching and (b) non-teaching staff have resulted from the funding of schools in this financial year. [125151]
Mr. Miliband: Provisional statistics on teacher and support staff numbers and teacher vacancies at January 2003 were published in April in "Statistical First Release 10/2003". Statistics due to be released on 9 September will provide regional and LEA level breakdowns of these figures; provisional national figures for January 2004 are due to be published next April. In May this year, in response to concerns about the difficulties some schools are facing as a result of changes to the funding arrangements, my Department liaised with local education authorities (LEAs) to make a broad assessment of the extent to which schools were making changes in their teaching staff complements. This included whether teachers were being made compulsorily redundant, and the possible reasons for changes in staffing, including falling rolls. LEAs' assessments were based on the best information available to them at that time; many told us that definitive information was not available and that the situation was changing rapidly as schools finalised their budgets and their staffing. In addition they advised that a significant number of the redundancy notices were "protective" and were likely to be withdrawn as the situation within schools and the LEA became clearer. My Department will continue to work closely with our national partners, including representatives of teachers, and have regular contact with LEAs.
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