Katie Price's ex Alex Reid calls for packed lunch ban

Former Celebrity Big Brother winner Alex Reid has called for supermarkets, banks and big business to fund free, healthy school meals for all children, in a speech in parliament.

Reid, the ex-husband of glamour model Katie Price (aka Jordan), said he wanted school packed lunches to be banned because pupils were eating chocolate and crisps which were "affecting their ability to concentrate in lessons".

Speaking to the All-Party Group on School Food, he outlined plans to raise £1b by offering companies promotional opportunities, including direct marketing to parents, in return for investment in a scheme called Let's Do Lunch.

He said his proposal would remove the financial burden of providing school meals from the taxpayer, adding: "The important thing is the Let's Do Lunch marketing would help companies investing in the scheme to generate more revenues.

"I want to make healthy school meals available to all kids. We will essentially make them compulsory and ban packed lunches."

In 2010, the Government shelved a scheme devised under Labour to widen entitlement to free meals to 500,000 more low-income families.

Labour MP and shadow education minister Sharon Hodgson, who is a member of the all-party group, said there were fears that more children could lose entitlement to free lunches under the forthcoming Universal Credit system.

"We now have to look at other ways of achieving those ambitions. The project that Alex is working on could go some way towards that," she told the Sunderland Echo last week.

Are school caterers skimping on portion sizes to cut costs? >>

Children's Society in call for free school meals for all children in poverty >>

LACA supports MP's call for mandatory school food standards for academies and free schools >>

By Janie Manzoori-Stamford

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