Jamie should be a Sir, say teachers

Jamie Oliver should be given a knighthood for his campaign to improve school dinners, a teachers' leader said yesterday.

The celebrity chef's work highlighting the dire quality of school meals warranted making him a modern-day knight of the kitchen, said Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers.

Jamie's School Dinners, the Channel 4 show in which he transformed food served at Kidbrooke School in the London borough of Greenwich, was praised by Mr Sinnott at the NUT conference in Gateshead.

He said: 'Don't you think the words Sir Jamie have a certain ring to them?' He also welcomed the Government's recognition that many young people had poor diets.

But he warned that the 37p spent on each school meal was 'simply not enough'.

He added: 'I call on it to commit itself to spending ?1 a day on school meals. Apound on the plate should be a campaign slogan that all political parties sign up to.'

Labour has pledged to bring in minimum nutritional standards for all school meals from September 2006.

Tougher rules for processed food come into force this autumn.