Trade body warns that changes are likely to drive up costs and push pupils to find somewhere to buy junk food

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A government push to get schoolchildren eating more lentils, pulses and beans at lunch could have a “devastating effect”, making catering services unviable, school meal providers have warned.

Proposals for healthier meals in English schools, which would limit the amount of desserts and reduce “grab-and-go” items such as pizzas and sausage rolls, would pile pressure on an already struggling sector, caterers said.

Though welcomed by chefs and campaigners, many schools say the government’s plan to remove ‘grab and go’ options from the menu is a step too far

It is lunchtime at Richard Challoner school, a Catholic comprehensive for boys in New Malden, south-west London. The familiar smell of school lunch is beginning to waft around the corridors.

In the canteen, there is a moment of calm as the kitchen team make final preparations before year 7 descend – a mass of chatting, laughing boys, with backpacks swinging and empty tummies grumbling.

Heather Hallett hails vaccine scheme but criticises rule that only those meeting 60% disabled threshold can get payouts

The Covid-19 vaccine programme in the UK was an “extraordinary feat” but the payment scheme for people injured by the jabs must be urgently reformed, the public inquiry on the pandemic has found.

In her report, the inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, praised the fact the UK was a world leader in biomedical sciences, which set it in good stead for developing and rolling out vaccines at scale. But she said the government must act urgently to reform the scheme for payments to the “small minority” of people seriously injured by the vaccines, and almost double maximum payouts to at least £200,000 from an upper limit of £120,000 at present.