VENDING machines selling fizzy drinks, chocolates and crisps are to be banned from the country’s state schools under laws to improve children’s diets.

Ruth Kelly, the education secretary, has decided that not only meals but also the machines will be covered by nutritional standards for school food. Junk food and sweets currently sold in the machines will have to be replaced by fruit, milk and bottled water.

Snack and drink manufacturers had hoped that vending machines would escape the crackdown, but the school meals review panel, set up by Kelly to examine nutritional standards, has decided that “healthy eating” rules must apply to all food and drink available at school.

The panel says that the move will require legislation. “Unless you stop selling the highly branded sugary snacks and drinks,” one panel member said, “they will always be chosen by children. You have to remove them if you’re going to be serious about reforming the school meals service.

“The way companies have profited from these machines at the expense of children’s health — and in the light of rising obesity — has been disgraceful.”

The proposal is likely to be opposed by manufacturers, with critics arguing that children unable to buy fizzy drinks and sweet snacks at school will buy them from local shops.

Supporters of the policy say that schools will not lose too heavily from the change.

A study published by the Food Standards Agency in 2004 found that schools offering vending machines selling nutritious drinks were popular with children and could make a profit.

France has already introduced a similar ban. All vending machines selling fizzy drinks and sweet snacks have been removed from the country’s schools and replaced with water fountains.

Kelly’s shake-up of the nutritional standards of school meals — to be announced at the Labour party conference this week — will also propose that highly processed foods, including fatty reformed meats such as turkey shapes, should be banned. Chips and ice cream will be rationed to one or two servings a week.

From September 2006 head teachers will be required to monitor the amount of carbohydrates, fat, protein and nutrients in school dinners.

The poor quality of children’s school meals was recently put under the spotlight by Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef, in a Channel 4 series, Jamie’s School Dinners. He revealed that as little as 37p was being spent on ingredients.

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