Jamie Oliver "keen to work with health secretary in the future" - after Lansley apologises

Lansley's attack on the work of the TV chef hit the headlines after speaking to doctors earlier this year and calling for "less lecturing" on lifestyle and more responsibility placed on the individual to tackle public health problems like obesity. The health secretary's feelings were made known after Oliver's well-documented schools campaign and introduction of nutritious lunches. Lansley said at the time: "If we are constantly lecturing people and trying to tell them what to do, we will actually find that we undermine and are counterproductive in the results that we achieve. "Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children, but the net effect was the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down." The outburst sparked an angry response from Oliver at the time, but the chef has now revealed that the pair have settled their differences and that he would be happy to work with Lansley in the future. In an interview with John Humphrys of the Radio Times, published today, Oliver said: "Well, he's written to me and apologised and said it was misconstrued. I don't want to fight with him, I just want to work with him." Oliver won plaudits for his healthy eating campaign which began with his 2005 Channel 4 series, Jamie's School Dinners, and was credited with persuading the then Labour government to spend an extra £280m on school catering.