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Jamie Oliver has accused Education Secretary Michael Gove of "eroding" school meal standards amid fears that unhealthy food is being brought back.

The TV chef won the support of campaigners after raising concerns today that academies are not obliged to sign up to tough food regulations introduced by the previous Government.

Oliver called on parents to tell Mr Gove not to touch the rules, warning that a move away from them would be a disaster.

Mr Gove has insisted that academies should be given the freedom to decide what is best for their students.

Oliver told BBC News: "The bit of work that we did which is law was a good bit of work for any government.

"So to erode it, which is essentially what Mr Gove is doing - his view is we let schools do what they want.

"I think that's a wonderful ambition, that everyone's going to be brilliant, but headteachers are more pushed than ever, expected to do more than ever, now they have to be entrepreneurial caterers as well as everything else they have to do.

"The standards are there to really keep everyone on their game. It's not a large amount of paperwork, it really isn't, and for what it's for, which is essentially the future of our country, it's really important."

Oliver's comments came as the Local Authority Catering Association (LACA) suggested its members are being asked to bring back some "unhealthy food".

Michael Gove

LACA chairman, Lynda Mitchell, told the BBC: "Our members are telling us that they have been approached by academies to relax the rules and as providers to hundreds of thousands of schools we are concerned.

"They are being asked to put confectionery and other snacks back, especially at mid-morning. It is the return of the sausage roll to schools."

More than two-fifths of primary school children and a third of secondary school pupils are now opting for school meals, according to the latest official figures.

Take-up has been growing since the school meals revolution was kick-started by Oliver six years ago when he began a campaign for better quality school dinners.

It won widespread public support and led to strict nutritional guidelines for meals introduced to primary schools in 2008 and secondaries in 2009.

But academies, which are semi-independent state schools, do not have to sign up, and since last year, the coalition Government has allowed any school to apply for academy status.

Oliver told BBC News: "I think parents need to tell Mr Gove that the standards are there for good reason, and actually not everything that the last government did was wrong. They did a lot of good stuff and he shouldn't touch them.

"It could be a disaster."

He accused the Conservatives of "cleverly" eroding the standards by allowing academies to opt out.

Oliver told BBC Breakfast: "I think the Conservatives have been very clever, because if they just came out and said 'we're taking away the standards' ... what they've done is they're actively, aggressively pushing academies, which is already one-third of all our secondary schools, and they don't have any requirements at all."

He warned that Britain is "in the middle of the darkest health moment in British history as far as kids' health is concerned".

A quarter of under-10s are obese, along with a third of teenagers, he said.

Mr Gove has said that giving academies the choice to opt out of nutritional standards gives them the freedom to do what is best for their students.

In a letter to Oliver, following a meeting in June, he wrote: "I noted your concerns about academies not being required to comply with the nutritional standards for school food.

"I would like to reassure you that we have no reason to believe that academies will not provide healthy, balanced meals that meet the current nutritional standards.

"As part of the broader freedoms available to academies, I trust the professionals to act in the best interests of their pupils."

He added that he had asked the Trust to carry out a study of established academies looking at their approach to healthy school food.

Christine Haigh, co-ordinator of the Children's Food Campaign said: "Today's expose certainly backs up reports we have been hearing from people on the ground. It's clear that the loophole created by this Government is going to reverse years of hard work to improve food in schools."

School Food Trust chairman Rob Rees said: "We're always very concerned to hear of any school which either isn't meeting the national school food standards, or which is choosing not to.

"All the evidence shows that when children eat better, they do better, so this should be a complete and utter no-brainer for any school wanting to do the best for its pupils."