Wednesday, 28 September 2005, 14:26 GMT 15:26 UK
BBC
Foods high in fat, salt or sugar are to be banned from vending machines and meals in English schools within a year.
The ban from next September is being announced by Education Secretary Ruth Kelly at the Labour Party conference.
Ministers had said vending machines could be excluded from a crackdown, but they will now be banned from stocking sweets, crisps and high-sugar drinks.
The School Meals Review Panel is next week to announce nutritional standards that will be compulsory in schools.
Ms Kelly's speech in Brighton is also due to outline plans for more parental choice in schools.
The School Meals Review Panel was set up after a campaign to improve school meals by TV chef Jamie Oliver.
His television series revealing the low standards in school food sparked widespread concern.
In response to Oliver's programme, the government promised extra funding to bring the primary school meal budget up to 50p per pupil per day - and created the panel to set minimum nutritional standards for school meals.
SCHOOL FOOD BAN
Burgers and sausages from 'meat slurry' and 'mechanically recovered meat'
Sweets including chewing gum, liquorice, mints, fruit pastilles, toffees and marsh mallows
Chocolates and chocolate biscuits
Snacks such as crisps, tortilla chips, salted nuts, onion rings and rice crackers
These standards will be introduced from this term - and will become mandatory from September 2006.
Nutritionist Jane Clarke worked on Oliver's programme. She told BBC Radio Five Live Ms Kelly's proposals were a step in the right direction.
"I think it's a definite movement in the right direction of just having fruit, having water, having maybe some unsalted nuts...
"These are the right things because we're showing that kids can still have good tasting food that's healthy."
Poor quality
In her speech to the Labour party conference, the education secretary is expected to promote the need for children to have a healthy diet at school.
She will say: "I am absolutely clear that the scandal of junk food served every day in school canteens must end.
"So today I can announce that we will ban poor quality processed bangers and burgers being served in schools from next September.
"And because children need healthy options throughout the school day I can also announce that from next September no school will be able to have vending machines selling crisps, chocolates, or sugary fizzy drinks."
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Ms Kelly said it was "common sense" that some sorts of foods should be excluded from school menus.
"And those are foods that, for example, are meat products that are made from reconstituted meat slurry that bears no resemblance to the original product."
Ms Kelly said school governors would have a responsibility for the food served, which would be monitored by Ofsted.
'Quick fix'
Plans to raise the standard of school food will not benefit pupils in local authorities where there is no school meals service.
Joe Harvey, the director of the Health Education Trust, which has advised the government on healthy eating in schools, said it was time for schools to abandon their reliance on the quick fix of junk food.
On Five Live, he said: "Why is it that head teachers and governing bodies have been prepared to accept really quite high levels of profit from food and drink that they know very well is not good for the children that they're responsible for?
"They're not there to make a profit for the confectionery and soft drink industry. They're there to care for children."
Shadow education secretary David Cameron said: "We welcome this belated U-turn from Ruth Kelly. At the election ministers rejected Conservative proposals to extend a ban on junk food to vending machines, so this is a positive step.
"However, tighter standards are only part of the solution. They must be backed by sufficient resources for schools to provide the extra staff and kitchen facilities required - two crucial elements which are not being met in many schools."
In Wales, an assembly government spokesperson said: "We very much look forward to hearing about any new legislation encouraging healthy eating among young people.
"In Wales, we have always taken a whole school approach, providing healthy breakfasts through our healthy vending machine pilots in Pembrokeshire to better the nutrition of school meals.
"Carmarthenshire has just won the prize for the best local authority in the entire UK for the quality of its school meals."
Nutrient standards were introduced a few years ago for meals in Scotland's schools, which typically spend more on ingredients than those in England.
The Northern Ireland School Caterers Association says schools there cook from fresh ingredients and do not rely as heavily on convenience foods.
so the school thought they might as well have the dosh instead of them. Mind you the tuck shop was crap, because they didn't have sell by dates then and the crisps were always usually stale 
At least with the Vans you had more choice and the ice creams were the best around. It was great 