More families get access to Healthy Start scheme after legal action

The scheme aims to reduce child poverty and health inequalities by providing free vitamins, nutritional advice and weekly vouchers to buy nutritious food or infant formula to low-income families with pregnant women and children up to the age of four. 

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All British children, whose parents would meet the financial criteria to claim welfare benefits, but are unable to do so as a result of their immigration status, will now be entitled to support provided under the scheme, it has been announced.

The government U-turn comes after the mother of a one-year-old baby launched legal action over the scheme’s eligibility criteria.

The mother has a lawful right to reside in the UK but had been “expressly prohibited by UK law from claiming welfare benefits and therefore her child, known as Child A, could not benefit from the Healthy Start scheme”, solicitors MG&Co said.

“The claimants’ household income was almost 40 per cent less than what families claiming welfare benefits, and therefore eligible for the Healthy Start scheme, would receive. On this income the family struggled to afford a healthy and nutritious diet,” the firm added.

In December 2020, the High Court granted a judicial review over claims brought by the mother on the grounds that the eligibility criteria for the scheme is “indirectly discriminatory against children and mothers from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, breached their human rights and was inconsistent with the intended purpose of the scheme.”

Before the review reached court, Health Secretary Matt Hancock agreed to hold a consultation over the scheme and has moved to allow all British families who meet financial criteria access to the benefits from this winter.

Families will be able to access support by way of an ex gratia benefit until the scheme is extended, the Health Secretary has said.

Olivia Halse, associate solicitor at MG&Co, said: “We hope this extension will go some way toward tackling health inequalities and child food poverty in the UK and help provide these children with a healthy start in life. Now more than ever, the most deprived families need the additional help that the Healthy Start scheme was intended to provide.

“Whilst this victory is a step in the right direction, the no recourse to public funds (NRPF) restriction continues to exclude thousands of disadvantaged children and families from migrant backgrounds from a whole host of vital services.

“We hope that the government will seriously consider the NRPF condition and the devastating impact it has on vulnerable children and families, many of whom are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.”