Free school meals are currently available to around 16% of children whose family income is below the current threshold for qualification. However, estimates have put the number of children missing out on school dinners due to cost at a staggering 400,000 - this means that they are not benefiting from a nutritional meal purely based on the cost.

To try and help reduce this figure, the Government's Department of Children, Families and Schools is piloting free school meals for all - regardless of household income.

Unfortunately, the seemingly omnipresent Jamie Oliver thinks this is a bad idea and will lead to the school dinner standards dropping. Why this would be is anyone's guess, as the more children taking up a cooked school dinner means more money for the school caterers which should in turn be reinvested back in to the dinner programme.

Before a universal roll-out were to happen, a £20m pilot scheme is taking place in two especially deprived areas which will monitor the effect of free meals for all on children's health, behaviour and academic standards over a period of two years.

The Scottish Government have already announced that from August 2010 all five to seven year-olds will have school dinners for free, following a successful pilot scheme which saw more children opting for dinners and becoming willing to try unfamiliar healthy foods. 

Free prescriptions and free dinners in Scotland then.....  

Looks like the Government and Jamie Oliver have pushed things too far. New guidelines on school dinner ingredients are just too restrictive according to the Local Authority Caterers Association. It seems that due to the new nutritional content restrictions, school dinner menus will now take too long to conceive and will also be limited as to what will be made available to pupils.

The LACA said 80% of its members believed the new guidelines would lead to a decrease in take-up of school meals in England, but the School Food Trust argues that a balanced menu is still achievable.

The new nutritional guidelines will be introduced in England's schools from September, one year after they took effect in primary schools throughout the country. They will involve 14 nutrient-based standards. As an example, the average secondary school lunch must contain no less than 7.5g protein and 5.2mg iron!

So, it seems that more meddling from our nannying government will backfire on them with less children eating the healthier school dinners in favour of more choice at the local fast food emporium.

We say the answer is simple - get back to using the old school dinner recipes of the 70s and 80s! And if they want to know where to find the recipes, as the schools' were probably destroyed in some frenzied book burning ceremony, then look no further than here. School Recipes - a vote for common sense!