Celebrity TV chef Jamie Oliver has delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for better food standards in schools. His Feed Me Better internet petition has been signed by 271,677 people. It comes as Education Secretary Ruth Kelly prepares to unveil a £280 million funding package to improve the quality of school meals.
But the Government says the timing is a pure co-incidence.
Before he handed in the petition, Oliver told reporters he wanted to see the amount spent on primary school dinners increased from 37p to 50p.
To provide secondary school children with a proper nutritional meal, the amount needed was 60p, he said.
Ms Kelly has promised to meet both these demands.
Being the cynic I am, I would like to comment "co-incidence" my arse! Government just trying again to jump on a pre election good news band wagon, originally created by Jamie using his own status in the public eye to expose a seriously under-funded school meals system that feeds kids worse than convicts!
I watch most of Mr Oliver's programmes on the TV, when he took on the task of training 15 underprivileged kids to work in the new restaurant, it brought back lots of memories for me. I undertook the City & Guilds Catering course for 2 years at Cricklade College. Most of the kids on that course were from the lower end of the educational & social spectrum & had been offered a place on the course as a last resort & a last chance of further education. All of the things Jamie's kids got up to, most of my peers at college were doing 20 years earlier. I genuinely was one of the few that actually applied to do the course because I really wanted to - much to my parents dissmay!
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