The biggest - and best - decision on health yesterday was not announced in the health debate at the Labour conference but during the education session that preceded it. Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, announced foods high in fat, salt and sugar would be banned both from school meals and in school vending machines by next September. Instead of stocking sweets, crisps and high-sugar drinks, vending machines will be expected to provide fresh fruit, milk, bottled water and fruit juice. One year ago such a move would have prompted howls of protests from tabloid papers about Labour's nasty nanny state tendencies. But even they may have changed their tune following Jamie Oliver's devastating television series on the inadequacy of school meals in the spring. Some 270,000 signed his "Feed Me Better" petition that he delivered to Downing Street in March. The response was a government pledge of £280m over three years to raise the standards of school meals.
As our consumer affairs correspondent, Felicity Lawrence, showed earlier this month, Ms Kelly faces a daunting challenge. A Guardian survey found 17 local authorities were no longer providing a hot meal service for their children. Pupils entitled to free school meals were given sandwiches instead. There are no national figures, but since local authorities were given the right to axe their school meals service by the 1979 Conservative Government, many have opted out. A 1986 law requiring them to put out the meal service to competitive tender without imposing minimum standards, prompted more opt-outs. Even new schools under Labour have been built without proper kitchens. Jamie Oliver discovered some school caterers were paying as little as 37p for the ingredients of their each meals. Even fewer children are now eating school meals in the wake of the TV series. The Local Authority Caterers Association estimates the drop - driven by a collapse of parental confidence in the service - could be as high as 15%.
Yesterday the education secretary told the Labour conference that "the scandal of junk food served every day in school canteens must end." The ban will include "low quality reprocessed bangers and burgers high in fat, salt and sugar". Better still, going beyond what she said in the spring, her crackdown will be extended to vending machines too. The £280m programme announced earlier included £60m for a School Fund Trust that will advise schools - and parents - on healthier meals. Some £45m is being provided by the Big Lottery Fund. The increased subsidies to schools will cover better kitchens, more training for canteen cooks, a longer day so fresh food can be prepared, and an increased spend on the ingredients of meals - at least 50p in primary and 60p in secondary schools. Critics of the new moves will include wider voices than the junk food manufacturers. They need to be reminded of the succession of medical reports that has documented the rise of obesity in Britain. It has risen five-fold in 25 years. Some 22% of the adult population is obese and 50% overweight. Unless current trends - the fastest growing obesity in Europe - are reversed, half of all British children could be obese by 2020. It is not just a physical reduction in the quality of life which these people suffer, but a serious deterioration in their health. Obesity is one of the main drivers of the large increase in diabetes - two million people have now been diagnosed - as well as a cause of heart disease and cancer. It is soon expected to supersede tobacco as the greatest cause of premature death in the UK. Even more seriously, given the nine shorter years of life obese people suffer, Britain could be on the brink of seeing average life expectancy shrink. Ms Kelly's move was urgently needed. Her health colleagues should now insist on an advertising ban on junk food during the hours that children watch television.
