After e-mailing I got a standard response back from her team.
Dear xxx
Thank you for your email of 18th March 2005 addressed to Ruth Kelly about school meals. As you will appreciate, the Minister receives a great deal of correspondence and is unable to reply personally to each one. I have been asked to reply on the Minister?s behalf.
The Government welcomes Jamie Oliver?s TV programme, as it would any initiative that highlights the need to improve children?s diets.
This Government takes seriously and is tackling the causes and effects of childhood obesity. In the Public Health White Paper it gave a commitment to review school lunch nutritional standards.
We are currently taking forward a number of projects that will improve nutrition in schools meals and reinforce healthy eating messages taught in the classroom, they are:
·revising secondary school lunch nutritional standards to reduce sugar, salt and fat intakes and increase fruit and vegetable consumption;
·evaluating primary school lunch standards, to establish where revision is needed;
·setting standards for other food available on school premises;
·providing additional support for heads and governors to help them source a healthy school meals? service; and
·developing a qualification dedicated to school catering staff.
In addition a further package was announced by Ruth Kelly in February that will support parents, enabling them to voice concerns over the service in their school, and work with the school to implement change:
·that we will consult schools, parents, the food industry, caterers and food interest groups, as well as wider Government partners, on what needs to be done to empower parents;
·setting up of a Trust, bringing together the industry, education, expert and voluntary sector interests; and
·minimum specifications for the content of processed foods used in school meals: this will bear down on foods high in fat, salt and sugar.
You will also be interested to know that a further announcement on the provision of food in schools will be issued shortly.
Thank you again for taking time to write to this Department. Please be assured that we are interested in and will continue to work towards improving the well-being of our children.
Yours sincerely
Susan Hall
Pupil Well-being and Transport Team