Blair backs Jamie on school dinners

Tony Blair jumped on the bandwagon for healthier school meals today as he published Labour's pledges for children.

A promise that schools inspectors will report on quality of meals are at the heart of a drive to reduce the amount of junk food on school menus.

TV chef Jamie Oliver exposed the poor nutritional quality of food offered in many canteens.

More than 130,000 parents signed a petition demanding improvements after learning that only 37p of the cost of the dinners is spent on food.

The Labour document contains:

Mr Blair acknowledged parents' anger in a newspaper article at the weekend in which he praised Jamie Oliver's TV series as "remarkable".

"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," the Prime Minister said.

But critics said Mr Blair's proposals were meaningless without extra money to pay for better ingredients and higher staff costs to prepare fresh food. Today's mini-manifesto will also confirm Labour's pledges of extra childcare, including after-school and breakfast clubs to help working parents.

A £20 million Parenting Fund aims to help keep pre-teens out of trouble.

Well-behaved teenagers will be offered tickets to sports events and concerts or character-building trips such as rock climbing.

Some £100 million is promised for the support of volunteer activities.