Lord Remnant (Con)

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group, and particularly Amendment 209, in the names of my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes and other noble Lords who have added their names. I have a granddaughter, now aged 10, who from birth has been allergic to dairy, eggs and nuts. Through a lengthy medically managed programme she has been able to reduce substantially her reaction to dairy and eggs, but remains extremely vulnerable to peanuts and sesame. She carries an EpiPen, although mercifully she has not yet had cause to use it. These allergies remain a constant concern to her and her parents. Yet I regard her as being one of the fortunate ones. She is conscientious and very aware of what she can and cannot eat, but the inherent risks are heightened away from home, whenever, say, she is at a friend’s house or in a restaurant. Most importantly, she attends a school which has adopted and follows the policies and procedures stipulated by Amendment 209. I regard these as minimum standards to be followed by schools. They surely should be regarded as best practice. However, it appears that, despite allergy being the most chronic childhood condition in the UK, my granddaughter’s school is in the minority in specifying these protections and our legislation lags behind global comparators. This cannot be right. During term time, children spend most of their waking hours at school. Schools act in loco parentis, with all the legal duties of care that that entails, but current statutory medical guidance, as we have heard, is not specific to allergies. It is vague and open to interpretation. It has created a worrying gap in allergy safeguard provision. Even were this adapted specifically to address allergies, it would remain just guidance. Unless the Minister can assure us otherwise, it would not be mandatory and it is unlikely to be comprehensive, so it would not achieve the step change required. The adoption of Amendment 209, on the other hand, would go a long way towards filling this gap. I am also fully supportive of Amendments 210, 212, 213 and 214 in the name, principally, of the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg. Amendments 210 and 212 in particular would ensure that external providers, including catering providers, follow a school’s allergy and anaphylaxis policy. If we are sensibly to mandate schools to have such a policy, for compliance with which they will be held responsible, we should give them the tools to enforce that policy.