London: School dinners

Christine Phillips
Politics Show London

Lumpy mashed potato, beetroot, tasteless stew and semolina ... just some of the memories of school dinners that bring fear flooding into the faces of journalists at BBC London.

School dinners: more vegetables and fruit a must?

A generation on, school meals still have a poor reputation and, with increasing concerns about nutrition and childhood obesity, the Government has promised a review of the food served in our schools.

Until the end of the 1980s the provision of school dinners by local authorities was tightly controlled but in 1988, under the then Conservative administration, school meals were deregulated, allowing private companies to take over.

Chips with everything?

Since then Labour has introduced a number of compulsory nutritional standards but, despite these, children could still find themselves eating chips four days a week.

Politics Show London looks at a consortium of 10 schools in Essex which decided to opt out of the local authority's arrangements and to go it alone.

Their experience charts the difficulty schools have in providing good, nutritious food in house and the financial tensions between what school meals cost and what people expect to pay for them.

So what are your views on this issue? Let Politics Show London know what you think.

That is Politics Show, Sunday, 10, October at 12.30pm.

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