We put your questions about the new rules on healthy school meals to Judy Hargadon, Chief Executive of the School Food Trust.

Name and address withheld
How will you stop children from buying chocolate and crisps from school tuck shops or vending machines? Will these also be affected by the new recipe rules?

New standards for school food other than lunch will be introduced in September 2007 and will cover food and drinks sold in vending machines and tuck shops. Various things will be banned under the new standards and these do include crisps and chocolate. Of course there will now be healthier options available in tuck shops.

David Bertram, Twickenham
Why has the School Food Trust classified manufactured oven-baked chips (which contain 5 per cent fat or less) as "deep-fried" products alongside greasy "chip-shop" style chips. This decision means that these healthier versions of popular foods now have to compete directly with the much less-healthy versions for the two "slots" a week for deep-fried foods. Surely it makes more sense to direct kids towards healthier versions of favourite foods - and doing so might keep them in the school dining room rather than in the take-away! I can't see any nutritional logic behind this decision.

Since these are food-based standards they are as much about creating a culture of healthy eating so some banned products may technically be on a par nutritionally with others which are not banned. When the new nutritional standards come into force in 2007 these anomalies will be ironed out.

Bev Charman-Gay, Croydon
My question is how are packed lunches going to be compliant? I give my son a packed lunch which I regard as healthy - no crisps, fresh fruit salad in juice not syrup, quiche and salad or panini with filling but he tells me that there are some children who bring bags of crisps, chocolate rolls etc.

At present there are no plans to introduce standards for packed lunches because, clearly, it is down to parents to put what they feel is appropriate in a packed lunch. We are producing guidance for schools and parents for what's best in a packed lunch - and it's worth noting some schools have arrangements with parents where they ask for certain foods not to be included in packed lunches. Ultimately our hope is that as the quality of school lunches improves more pupils will opt to take them, thereby cutting down on the number who take packed lunches.

Name and address withheld
Are these new measures likely to increase the amount of money it will cost schools to cook their lunches? If this is the case won't it mean that children will be charged more to eat?

The Government has made funds available to local authorities to cover the extra costs of meeting the new standards as well as an extra £240m available to subsidise ingredients in the longer term. It's likely the majority of school meals will be pegged at the same price over the coming years. There will be some schools, however, which may have to increase the price, though this is likely to be minimal and clearly the quality of the food produced will be much higher.

Name and address withheld
Will school cooks get new training on how to make the new food? Won't this cost schools more money.

The School Food Trust is holding a series of conferences to help cooks learn more about what is involved in the new standards. In addition the Government has recently developed a new vocational related qualification- (VRQ) to bring all school cooks up to scratch with the basics of food preparation as well as planning healthy menus and, importantly marketing those menus to pupils. Within the last couple of months the Government also announced the establishment of 15 regional training kitchens which it aims to put all school cooks through at some stage in their career.