Jamie wins dinner war

Jamie Oliver today scored a major victory after £280 million was pledged to improve school meals.

His campaign forced Tony Blair to unveil plans to ensure every primary school will spend at least 50p per meal and every secondary school 60p.

It was a massive concession and came after the poor quality of food and lack of funding was exposed on the chef 's programme Jamie's School Dinners, making it a pre-election issue.

Oliver said: "It's the right sort of money but it's 20 years too late." He said it was "a bit of shame" that it took a documentary to get real change.

He was speaking in Downing Street as he presented a 271,000-name petition signed by parents demanding better meals. Oliver said he would be advising the Government on the best approach but would remain independent. He added: "I'm going to try and remain the voice of the dinner lady and the parent."

Virtually all his demands were met by Education Secretary Ruth Kelly, including plans to force schools to adopt strict minimum standards on nutrition. The money will also go on training dinner ladies to prepare fresh meals instead of junk food.

Ms Kelly admitted that previous Labour attempts to improve standards had not been "stringent enough". She said she was determined to transform the quality of school dinners.

The new plans include tough new limits on the amount of fat, salt and sugar that school meals can contain. Oliver, who sat down to coffee and croissants with Mr Blair at No10, said the problem should have been sorted out decades ago.

He said the desire for change was in the "hearts and the minds of the families and children that we have filmed".

He said: "It's a wonderful opportunity and I think it can happen if we keep working with them. I'm very excited."

Mr Blair said the school meals initiative was "an idea whose time has come". Asked by Sky News why it had taken so long to act, he paid tribute to Oliver but insisted: "We have been working on this for quite a long time."

Under the sweeping changes, education watchdog Ofsted will be responsible for policing the new standards. If a school breaks the rules, Ofsted will say so in its inspection report.

Of the £280million pledged, £60 million will go on the School Meals Trust, a body which will advise on menus and organise "Food Weeks" devised by Oliver to educate pupils and parents. The remaining money will be "ring-fenced" so councils have to spend it on ingredients and paying canteen staff to work longer preparing meals. Ms Kelly said the new money would allow England to "match" Scottish school meals, which cost an average of 70p.

The extra cash was aimed at creating a minimum spend, but would also push up the average, she said. Oliver's Channel 4 series revealed that schools in Greenwich were spending just 37p per meal on ingredients, less than a quarter of the cost of prison meals.

He also showed that when children were served a freshlyprepared alternative to junk food such as chips and turkey twizzlers they adapted quickly.

Earlier this year, an Evening Standard investigation showed that large amounts of processed food is served in London comprehensives every day.

Ms Kelly tried to head off criticism recently by unveiling a package of measures aimed at improving the quality of food. But critics claimed it failed to tackle the lack of funding for fresh ingredients.

Ms Kelly sidestepped a complete ban on schools selling junk food and also stopped short of banning vending machines selling crisps and fizzy drinks.

Liberal Democrat education spokesman Phil Willis said: "The extra funds are welcome but it's sad that it's taken a celebrity chef to get the Government to act when they've had eight years to improve the sorry state of school dinners.

"I hope this new initiative is more than the Government simply throwing money at a problem because we're a few weeks away from an election."