Jamie Oliver: 'Don't take free school lunches away from kids' (interview)

It was a few short lines in the Tory manifesto:
"An end to universal free school lunches for the first three
years of primary school." But to TV chef Jamie Oliver,
those lunches represent a decade of campaigning for healthier kids.
The battle lines are drawn. The Government says it will provide
free universal breakfasts for a tenth of the price
of the lunches, saving £600 million that could
be spent on teaching. What does Jamie Oliver think?
Because his Channel 4 series, Jamie's School Dinners, led
to a Government commitment to improve school meals.
So I asked him for his reaction to the Tory's manifesto pledge?
Oh! It's awful! It's awful. She will regret it.
She being Theresa May? Of
course, yeah. Why should she regret
it? First of all, I am apolitical. I
am not ranting about one thing or the other. This will be the fourth
Prime Minister I have worked with on the story of the in our shallment of
our children, which are by large the most unhealthy in Europe. We know
the disease that is the NHS are overtly paying for now and being
punished for and crucified now on cost, which is largely obesity,
diabetes and diet-related disease, that the school is at the frontline
of the fight against obesity. You
are saying it's short-sighted? Completely.
They're saying, or they would say if they were here, hang
on, Jamie, get real. £650 million we need to save, because there is a
shortfall of a billion in the schools system. We can save that
money and we are not in the business of subsidising middle class families
for their kids? So the argument
about middle class families saying I am happy to pay, I am happy to pay,
let the poor kids get it free. But I am happy to pay. First of all it's
the first three years. The system needs the bread and butter. Now the
bread and butter that is £650 million which is the most incredible
£650 million of bang for buck, guarantees nutrition. It treats
everyone the same. Rich or poor. It gets the system going. It gets the
staffing going and then thereafter those first three years the people
that can afford pay and that's new money and we do want it. I don't
believe in a whole free school system. For me, I have gone through
four Prime Ministers, we have had dialogue with all of them apart from
this one. This one's weird. Like the obesity strategy that Theresa May
launched at midnight in the holidays with no Minister owning it, what she
did to the paper that I was involved in with Mr Cameron, I was
collaborating - I am not anti-Conservative, right, I am
apolitical and I want her to be brilliant, I want a brilliant female
Prime Minister. What fundamentally what she is doing is taking from
teachers and taking from the kids. She would be saying she's taking
from some of the kids and giving it to the teachers.
No, no, because... The money would go back to...
That's a way to spin it for middle class,
certain newspaper reading people that go I am all right, yeah, they
should get it, they shouldn't. We know that kids that are fed right
are 5% better off in their SATs. We have proof and science from
measurement that says they learn better. From an educational point,
right, this makes no sense. They
would say, hang on, they would say they are feed - the governor said
£650 million for free lunches, for those first three years we can't do
but we can do £60 million for free breakfasts.
OK. First of all, it's not a one or the other. Right. We
are the most unhealthy country in Europe. If anyone watching this is
passionate about a prosperous Britain in 20 years, feeding them a
decent lunch, feeding them a decent breakfast is not an army, it's not
one versus the other. It's both. If you are saying there a shortfall of
£1 billion, right, put two billion in. You will never waste a penny
investing in teachers. You will never waste a penny investing in...
They would say it's about priorities.
There is no priority more important than teachers and
schools and nutrition of our kids right now. It's completely insane to
think that you want to rescue the NHS on one side, to think that money
spent and invested on kids and teachers is not an investment in the
future, it's ridiculous.
The educational endowment foundation has done a study involving 106
primary schools in poor areas, where they have found that actually the
breakfast club, the free breakfast is as effective as a free lunch for
not just feeding kids well, but for getting up their educational
standards. And it's financially more responsible. What's your response?
My response is - thank you. Well done. This is not an argument about
should we have breakfast clubs or lunch. It can't be. There is no -
If you had to choose.
You don't choose. Government's do have to choose
No, they don't have to choose. The
science and data is there that kids must be nourished for wreck fast and
lunch. What you have to remember is two thirds of the people that fall
outside of the free school lunches are still coming in under nourished
OK. It's not - what we mustn't do is get into the spin of breakfast or
lunch - both. We can't get into the spin of well, they've got to take
money from somewhere. Yeah, I'd rather take it from elsewhere, not
the kids and the teachers. I don't want her to fail. But there's a
pattern here - What is that pattern?
We know we're going to win, so we're going to get our jazz hands going
and try a few tricks that we couldn't get away with in other
governments. It's as simple as that. For us to hear about 600 million
here, it's big numbers. It's telephone numbers. I could tell you
one thing, let's get the nicker drawer out and look at the spending,
look at the bills and billions of spending. 650 million there would be
the most genius pound spent. It's the biggest restaurant chain on the
planet. 26,000 schools. 18,000 primary schools. Hundreds of
thousands of lunch cooks. You can't just take it away, because you're
screwing up the matrix. Jeremy
Corbyn says universal free school lunches in primary school. Has he
gone too far? Yes. Gone too far. For
me, the way I see it, right, and like my little brain is like, I'm
not just talking like from some middle class place. I've worked in
the most unhealthy towns and cities in the world in Britain. I've worked
on the line. I've served kids. I've done my time, where I had 55 schools
in Greenwich right, I know that money, new money, cash coming into
schools for school lunches is really, really important. We want
parents that can afford it to pay for it. It will still be the
cheapest meal they pay for. You've got to remember 12 years ago, there
was standards for dog food and not for kids food in school.
Jamie Oliver. Well, naturally, we did ask
the Conservative Party to speak to us about their school meals
policy and to respond to Jamie's comments, but they said
no-one was available. They did tell us, however,
that school breakfasts are at least as effective as lunches,
and they will offer every child in every year of primary school
a breakfast and the least well-off a lunch too.

Jamie Oliver: 'Don't take free school lunches away from kids' (interview)

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