Labour is moving to ban deep-fried food and restrict sugary puddings to once a week in the biggest overhaul of school dinner standards in England in a decade
Pizza, chips, and sausage rolls all face the chop under Labour’s latest plans for school dinners (Image: Getty)
School canteens in England are set to be transformed under the government’s most ambitious shake-up of school food standards in ten years — with deep-frying banned outright and sugary options pushed to the margins of the weekly menu.
The Department for Education wants fruit to become the default end to a school meal for most of the week, replacing the sweet puddings and snacks that currently feature heavily. Convenient but unhealthy options — the sausage rolls and slices of pizza that many schools offer daily — would be restricted rather than available on demand. Sweetened desserts would be permitted no more than once a week, with menus reshaped around fruit, vegetables and wholegrains.
Consultations on the proposals will run for nine weeks. Whatever emerges will be set out formally next September, with the new regime taking effect from the start of the 2027 school year. Larger secondary schools will have more time built in to overhaul their kitchens, recipes and workforce training before the rules kick in fully.
The scale of the problem the government is trying to address is significant. Official figures show that by the time children complete primary school, more than a third are carrying excess weight. For children between five and nine, the single most common reason for a hospital stay is tooth decay — a condition directly linked to the sugar content of their diets.
An enforcement framework will be built alongside the new standards, with schools monitored for compliance. That mechanism is partly a response to evidence that the previous rules, introduced in 2015, have frequently gone unenforced — largely because the cost of meeting them has proved prohibitive for many schools.
Funding fears
Educators broadly welcomed the direction of travel but were uniform in their concern about money, reports the BBC.
Tom Middlehurst of the Association of School and College Leaders is reported to have said improving school food was “something we wholeheartedly support” but insisted the changes “must be implemented in a practical way”, with funding to cover any additional costs.
The financial reality facing schools is already strained. Independent research published in 2025 put the true cost of producing a single school meal at around £3.45. The government currently pays £2.61 per free school meal in England — a gap of roughly 80p that schools are expected to absorb. Campaigners called for that rate to be raised last year, warning that schools were being forced to dip into their operating budgets to keep the kitchen running.
Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson said the government “needs to ensure that free school meals funding matches the rising costs, ensuring every child receives a healthy and filling meal essential for their education.”
“From talking to parents, head teachers and school governors in my constituency, I know that many are worried about the rising cost of food, and in many cases the current funding just isn’t enough, forcing schools to provide smaller portion sizes and poorer quality food,” she said. “The education secretary must urgently address this problem.”
Brad Pearce, national chair of the School Food People, reportedly said the review was welcome but standards needed to be “monitored and funded appropriately.”
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Political reaction
Reform UK was blunt in its opposition. A party spokesperson said the plans were “yet another example of the government trying to micromanage people’s lives.”
“Banning foods from school menus won’t solve childhood obesity,” they said. “It just removes choice and adds pressure on already stretched schools. We should be focusing on education, personal responsibility, and ensuring families can afford healthy food, not headline-grabbing bans.”
The Green Party took the opposite view. “Removing unhealthy food from school menus is welcome and long overdue,” a spokesperson said, adding that the party wanted free healthy meals extended to all primary and secondary pupils rather than just infants, and called for wider action on food insecurity and low pay.
Free meals expansion
Children in England whose parents draw Universal Credit will gain automatic entitlement to free school meals from September 2026, under a change the government says will extend eligibility to half a million more pupils. Breakfast provision is also being expanded — more than 500 new free breakfast clubs are opening their doors this week, with the per-pupil funding rate doubling from 60p to £1 after schools flagged that the previous amount was unworkable.
The picture across the rest of the UK differs considerably. Every primary school child up to Year 6 receives a free meal in both London and Wales, where funding rates are higher — £3 per pupil in London and £3.40 in Wales, against the £2.61 standard in England. North of the border, Scottish pupils in their first five years of primary are covered, as are those whose families receive the Scottish Child Payment. In Northern Ireland the system is means-tested, with an income ceiling of £15,000 determining eligibility.