(2) what his estimate is of the total school meal uptake in secondary schools in (a) 2003-04 and (b) 2006-07; and if he will make a statement;
(3) what information is collected by his Department on the costs and take-up of school meals; and if he will make a statement;
(4) how many and what proportion of pupils in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools took school meals in each reporting period since 1997; and if he will make a statement;
(5) what recent representations he has received from the Local Authorities Caterers Association on school meals.
The Department does not collect information about the cost of school meals or school lunch take-up. It has also not made an assessment of the new standards for school meals on levels of demand. However, the School Food Trust will be publishing in August the results of its annual survey on school lunch take-up. Early figures from that survey indicate that take-up in primary schools is down by 1.8 percentage points (to 40.6 per cent.) and in secondary schools by 5.3 percentage points (to 37.4 per cent.). And a recent survey by the Local Authority Caterers Association reported that total meal take-up has dropped over the three year period from 2003/04 to 2006/07. In primary schools the drop is 3 percentage points (to 40 per cent.) and in secondary schools 7 percentage points (to 35 per cent.).
The take-up figures are not unexpected as schools often experience falling demand with the introduction of healthier food. But we are in the early stages of our long-term ambition to transform school food: and we have other measures planed for the short and the longer term to promote school lunch and encourage children to eat more healthily. We also know that where schools take steps to manage the changes carefully through, for example, good marketing and pupil and parent involvement, take up can rise sharply.