Plan to target food poverty likely to stay off menu until 2016

Education secretary Michael Gove supports extending free school lunches to primary school pupils not currently receiving them. Photograph: Pa Wire/PA

The government has backed proposals to give free lunches to every primary school pupil in England, although they are unlikely to become reality before the next parliament because of the cost.

The education secretary, Michael Gove, supports extending free school lunches to the 3 million primary school pupils in England who currently do not receive them. But the price tag of ￡900m a year puts the policy out of reach until 2016 at the very earliest, Department for Education (DfE) sources suggested.

The recommendation is one of a series of measures in the School Food Plan, a report by the co-founders of the Leon chain of restaurants, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, commissioned by the department.

"We understand that the considerable cost and the need to involve other departments make it a big ask. But we are pleased that the secretary of state agrees with us in principle and we would urge schools and councils to consider funding universal free school meals themselves," Dimbleby and Vincent said.

The plan aims to improve the quality and image of school lunches among both children and parents, as well as changing the approach of teachers and schools to diet and nutrition.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who publicised the grim reality of school catering and the notorious Turkey Twizzlers in 2005, also gave his backing to the report.

"I know how much energy and passion has gone into this plan. Now it has to deliver on its promises and make sure no schools are left behind – that responsibility sits with this government," Oliver said.

The plan said universal provision of free school meals would address rising food poverty experienced by the most disadvantaged households. The plan's authors found that just 20% of children from the lowest-paid working families who were above the threshold to qualify for free meals bought school lunches.

The report said this was overwhelmingly because the parents – typically on a household budget of ￡10 a day – could not afford to pay. Instead, many children relied on nutritionally-poor packed lunches, or were going without lunch altogether. Carmel McConnell, founder of the Magic Breakfast charity, said funding was essential to help tackle food insecurity in the poorest families: "We can't emphasize enough how important it is for children to be given nutritious food at school because, sadly, all too often there are empty cupboards at home."

The report urged councils to follow the lead of the handful of Labour-run authorities that have pioneered universal free school meals.

Islington councillor Richard Watts said: "We feel this shows that the decision we took to go ahead with free school meals despite the massive government cuts to our budget was absolutely the right thing to do."

In Islington, school meal takeup has soared to 82% under the scheme, against a national average of 43%. In Durham, takeup rose to 85% before its free school meal scheme was abandoned after government-imposed budget cuts.

Apart from the universal free school meals, the other recommendations made by the report have been accepted by the DfE – notably a decision by Gove to enforce national nutritional standards on academies and free schools that open next year as well as maintained schools.

That still leaves more than 2,000 existing free schools and academies outside the food guidelines, but Dimbleby said those will be asked to voluntarily include the food standards in their contracts with government.

The measure that may have the biggest impact is the announcement that Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw is to include "behaviour and culture in the dining hall" in its guidelines for school inspections. Inspectors will consider "how lunchtime and the dining space contribute to good behaviour and the culture in the school," as well as investigating what school leaders are doing to ensure a healthy diet for their pupils.

Dimbleby said he had visited and eaten at 50 schools and consulted with teachers, industry representatives and parents in the course of a year while writing the report.

The authors backed away from earlier suggestions they would call for a blanket ban on packed lunches, although they do want schools to monitor lunches brought from home, and for schools to ban sugary drinks and confectionery.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said banning packed lunches wasn't feasible, and that spending would be needed to avoid long queues at lunchtime.

"There needs to be significant additional investment if all schools are to be able to avoid long dinner queues and create the kind of environment that we all would like to eat in," Lightman said.

Dimbleby urged all parents to read the report, saying he thought they should be involved in the debate and know what the options were.

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MIT did not target Aaron Swartz before federal prosecution, review finds

MIT president L Rafael Reif said: 'I am confident that MIT's decisions were reasonable, appropriate and made in good faith.' Photograph: Chris Stewart/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has released a long-awaited review of its involvement in the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, who was facing charges for hacking into the university's computers when he killed himself in January.

The 182-page report finds that school officials did not request federal prosecution of Swartz, and that MIT was not consulted about the charges or punishment, but it also questions the school's decision not to intervene in court proceedings.

Swartz had been federally indicted on 13 felony charges at the time of his death and was facing up to $1m in fines and 35 years in jail for downloading several million academic articles from the JSTOR database through the MIT computer network. The aggressive prosecution was roundly criticized following his death.

"I am confident that MIT's decisions were reasonable, appropriate and made in good faith," said MIT president L Rafael Reif in a statement (pdf). He said the report also makes clear that the school did not "target" Swartz.

According to the report, MIT administrators did not know Swartz was the person who had hacked into their networks until his arrest on 6 January 2011. The school also did not intend to "call in the feds" to take over the investigation, saying the presence of a secret service agent at his arrest was not their intention, "but a recognized possibility," when they alerted authorities that its network was compromised.

The school said it did not request a criminal prosecution be brought against Swartz and adopted a neutral position early in the prosecution. Though they issued no public statements, "MIT did inform the prosecution that it was not seeking punishment for Swartz, and it did inform the defense that it was not seeking any civil remedy from him."

"MIT took the position that US v Swartz was simply a lawsuit to which it was not a party, although it did inform the US attorney's office that the prosecution should not be under the impression that MIT wanted jail time for Aaron Swartz. MIT did not say it was actually opposed to jail time," the report said.

According to the report, prior to his death, "the MIT community paid scant attention" to Swartz's prosecution and few people expressed concerns to the administration about the case. However, Swartz's father, a consultant to the MIT lab and former student there, asked MIT to aid efforts to have the charges dropped or to get a plea deal that would not have jail time. Two faculty members advocated a similar appeal.

In choosing the position of neutrality, the report says the school did not consider Swartz's contributions to internet technology and was not critical enough of the US government's "overtly aggressive prosecution." MIT also did not account for Swartz's prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which the report called " a poorly drafted and questionable criminal law." That law has been widely criticised since Swartz's death.

"MIT's position may have been prudent, but it did not duly take into account the wider background of information policy against which the prosecution played out and in which MIT people have traditionally been passionate leaders," it concludes.

Reif asked computer science professor Hal Abelson to lead a review the school's involvement in his prosecution in January with assistance from other members of the MIT staff. The group consulted 10,000 documents and conducted interviews with 50 people to assess the school's involvement in the case.

"Only Swartz knows why he committed suicide," the report said. "However, for the final 24 months of his life, he was the subject of a vigorous investigation and prosecution by the US Department of Justice, with an indictment and then a superseding indictment that could have resulted in years in prison."

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