Jodie Gosling

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Lewell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this debate on an issue that has such a wide-ranging impact and is very close to my heart. I know that he works incredibly hard to champion people with allergies and the challenges they face. As the newly-elected chair of the APPG on allergy, I thank him dearly for his efforts. I have complex allergies that impact my everyday life. My first allergic reaction happened when I was two years old, when I took a bite out of a raw fish finger waiting to go in the oven. I scared the living daylights out of my mother, as my face and hands swelled up until it looked like, in her words, I had gone 10 rounds with Frank Bruno. I have lived with allergies all my life, as has my son, and have worked alongside many parents and children’s professionals in my 20 years of teaching. Navigating the world of allergies is difficult. The advice I have been given has been inconsistent and sometimes outright dangerous. There is simply not enough training or education for people to understand the issues and mitigate the harm. Eating anywhere is difficult. Most businesses would rather lose my custom and exclude me with a blanket of “may contain” and “cannot guarantee” notices than provide the information needed to eat safely. I fully appreciate that, in a world where we have acceptable levels of contaminants in food, there will never be 100% certainty, but I have been asked to sign waivers for pizzas and referred to companies’ policies, where pubs, clubs or outlets have refused to share ingredients that would allow me to make an informed choice. I have been insulted, ignored, condescended and asked to show my auto-injectors to prove that I am not just being fussy. I have difficulty navigating this world, and yet we expect children to do the same, without the same level of understanding or autonomy over their situation. The number of children with allergies has soared, with two children in every classroom diagnosed with allergies. Most of our schools do a brilliant job of trying to support and care for those children, but children’s allergies are routinely excluding and stigmatising them at school. They want to carry their own tray at lunchtime alongside their peers. They want to sit on the same tables with friends, not be segregated. They want to be able to eat puddings and take treats the teacher has brought in. The protections are simply not there to allow that to happen. School parties, discos, end-of-term treats and the dreaded cake day in schools present significant threats to children and exclude them from participation. When my eldest attended residential trips, he was sent with four days-worth of frozen meals packed up in an icebox because they could not guarantee safe food for his trip. I know other parents who have been required to attend school trips so that they can safeguard their children. I also know at first hand that school staff time is stretched and there are limits under the current system. The last 14 years have seen cuts in teachers’ expertise, teaching assistants and support staff, as well as larger class sizes and lower ratios. We are faced with a growing need.