Voices: ‘Dystopian nightmare here we come’: Readers mock Prue Leith’s school lunchbox ban call

D ame Prue Leith ’s call for lunchboxes to be banned in schools has prompted a strong reaction from Independent readers, many of whom accused her of pushing the state further into territory that should be left to parents.

The 86-year-old former Great British Bake Off judge said she wanted to see free, compulsory school meals for every child, and admitted her proposal to ban packed lunches altogether was “draconian” – but argued lunchbox contents simply can’t be policed.

From September, children whose families are on universal credit will be eligible for free school meals as part of a wider overhaul of school food standards.

But for many readers, the proposal crossed a line. Several accused ministers and campaigners of treating parents as incapable of making their own decisions, warning of a slippery slope from age verification to government portals monitoring what children eat.

Others pointed to more practical issues – allergies, religious dietary needs and school kitchens without the space or budget to cope.

I see the reasoning behind this argument, but it seems impractical to the extent of being wrong. Some children have food allergies and it is likely to be impossible for school-dinner providers to cope with all of them. A much larger number of children have very strong views about what they will not eat, and it is impossible, and undesirable, to legislate against this. To do so would lead many children simply to reject what they are given, and so go hungry or insufficiently fed. Bans and compulsory eating are not a caring way forward.

Great idea. We are already telling parents how to parent with online age verification, etc. Let’s force parents to scan their Tesco receipts to prove they’re not buying sweets. Let’s force parents to take pictures and send them to a government portal every night to prove they’re feeding their kids healthy food. Let’s fine them if they don’t adhere. Let’s weigh kids and fine parents if their kids are overweight or underweight. Let’s pull blood from kids and test their vitamin etc counts – fine parents if it’s not correct. Let’s fine parents if the kids’ teeth aren’t healthy. Let’s fine parents if their kids have too much acne because the parents aren’t forcing their kids to wash their faces.

We’re already heading that way – let’s keep the momentum going! Dystopian nightmare here we come…

Kids can be taught to like foods they initially hate, but parents being persuaded? That’s the tricky bit.

Now, the really hard bit. The costs, the infrastructure, the capacity.

Does every school have fully standards-compliant space, and enough cooks to do it?

School meals are presumably healthier today than the high-calorie, low-cost stuff we had when I was at school, but cheapness is always going to be a defining factor of school meals.