Blair pledges to improve school meals
Tony Blair has promised to support a campaign by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to improve the quality of school dinners.
Writing in the Observer newspaper, the Prime Minister said the Government would provide funding for a new School Food Trust, to help schools provide healthier meals.
Mr Blair said the new independent trust would “draw on the remarkable work of Jamie Oliver in schools, the Soil Association in encouraging the use of organic and local produce in school meals, and on the best advice on nutrition and eliminating processed foods.”
He added that part of the nine billion pound primary school building programme, announced in Thursday’s Budget, would be spent re-equipping school kitchens.
School catering staff will also be retrained to provide more appetising menus and the education watchdog OFSTED will inspect meals to ensure their quality.
“It may take a little time to change children’s tastes but it will be worth the effort if we can get them enjoying healthy and good-quality food at school,” said Mr Blair.
“I don’t believe for a moment that parents will see such measures as unnecessary interference in their lives but, rather, what they expect from a responsible government.”
The new measures will reportedly form part of a mini children’s manifesto ahead of the expected general election, which will outline Labour’s pitch to parents on issues from diet to paedophiles targeting children through the internet.
The issue of school dinners has crept up the political agenda ahead of the expected May 5 poll, following the screening of Mr Oliver’s documentary series, Jamie’s School Dinners.
The programme saw the TV chef transforming school dinners in 60 schools across Greenwich and south east London by banning junk food and helping retrain dinner ladies to cook fresh produce.
Commenting on the Prime Minister’s pledge, Mr Oliver told the Observer: “If changes are made it will only be a matter of months before British health, education and farming could be affected for the better.”
“It could be one of the biggest food revolutions that England has ever seen,” he added.
