I will write to my hon. Friend to clarify that particular point. Ofsted has a role in inspecting safeguarding, which incorporates a wide range of vulnerabilities that children may have. I do not know the answer to her specific question about section 100, so I will write to her on that afterwards.
I have no idea where I was in my speech at this point, so I will turn back to the code. On the points in the code on taking a whole-school approach and having clear governance and risk management, the statutory guidance makes it clear that all state-funded schools should have a policy for supporting children with medical conditions. This should be reviewed regularly and be accessible to parents and school staff.
The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) talked about school catering policies. Schools are expected to make reasonable efforts to cater for pupils with particular requirements—for example, as she touched on, to reflect medical, dietary and cultural needs.
In deciding what is reasonable, schools and their caterers are expected to take into account factors such as the type of diet required by the child with allergies, the number of children in a similar position and the cost of making suitable food available. In exceptional circumstances it may be considered reasonable for the school not to make special provision for particular children—for example, where this would be very difficult and costly to achieve.
Turning specifically to younger children, the early years foundation stage framework sets the standards that all registered early years providers must meet for the learning, development and care of children from birth to age five. It states:
“Before a child is admitted to the setting the provider must also obtain information about any special dietary requirements, preferences and food allergies that the child has, and any special health requirements.”
Providers must have
“a policy, and procedures, for administering medicines”
and
“systems for obtaining information about a child’s needs for medicines, and for keeping this information up-to-date. Training must be provided for staff where the administration of medicine requires medical or technical knowledge.”
Within all early years settings there is a requirement for at least one person who has a current paediatric first aid certificate to be on the premises and available at all times when children are present, and who must accompany all children on outings. The PFA criteria is clear that the training should include being able to
“help a baby or child who is suffering from anaphylactic shock.”
In September, we changed the adequate supervision requirement within EYFS to be explicit that adequate supervision while children are eating means that children must always be within “sight and hearing” of an adult; not within sight or hearing, as was the case previously. This will help practitioners to be able to notice the signs of an allergic reaction as soon as they present themselves, and allow them to act quickly. The new early years educator level 3 qualification will come into force next September. That will ensure that early years practitioners have an understanding of allergies and anaphylaxis.
I will have to write to the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), about the expert advisory group on allergy—this is the first time I have heard of that. Likewise, I will write to her about monitoring the effectiveness of the allergens policy. I think her question on research into life-saving treatments is probably better directed to the Department of Health and Social Care, but I will obtain for her the information about what that Department is doing in that regard.
Having outlined the various legislation and guidance that covers allergies in schools, the Government’s overall position, given the complexity and individual nature of allergies—which was set out very clearly by the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas), who chairs the APPG—is that the legislation we have in place is proportionate, and allows schools to respond to individual circumstances and the specific needs of their pupils, but, as I said earlier, we keep these policies under review. We welcome feedback on how we can better support schools’ implementation and awareness of these polices, particularly to try to remedy any inconsistencies between what we require from them and what is happening.
I will write to hon. Members about those points, and will meet my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford again for securing this important debate.
4.18 pm