Healthy Start: unlocking its potential to support with family food bills and tackle child food insecurity

As this briefing from Sustain and The Food Foundation shows, Healthy Start is a good investment and expanding eligibility to all families in receipt of Universal Credit would return net benefits to society of £7.7 billion over 10 years as a result of the reductions in food insecurity, increased household disposable income, and wider economic gains.

Summary

• The Healthy Start Scheme provides a critical nutritional safety net for lowincome families with young children to afford fruit, veg and milk. However, the scheme remains underpowered and is not sufficiently resourced to adequately address the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis on very young children.
• Healthy Start is a good investment. New analysis finds that expanding eligibility to all families in receipt of Universal Credit would return £2.36 for every £1 invested. The net benefits to society would be worth £7.7 billion over 10 years as a result of the reductions in food insecurity, increased household disposable income, and wider economic gains.
• The value of Healthy Start payments must be increased with inflation to maximise the benefit for young children. Had this been done, new calculations by the Food Foundation show that the payments would now be worth at least £5.88 per week, 26% higher (£1.23) than the current weekly rate of £4.65. Over the course of a year, that means families are losing out on at least £63.96 worth of fruit, vegetables, and other essentials, rising to £127.92 for families with a child under 1.
• Rising food prices are hitting lower-income families hardest, and without urgent government action to widen eligibility and increase the scheme's value in line with inflation, more children risk going.