Ban packed lunches, says Katie Price's ex Alex Reid

Alex Reid and Katie Price - aka Jordan - divorced earlier this year

Reality TV star and former cage fighter Alex Reid has called for a ban on school packed lunches in a speech in Parliament.

Mr Reid, ex-husband of celebrity Katie Price, said he wanted supermarkets, banks and big business to fund free, healthy school meals for all children.

He said pupils were eating chocolate and crisps which were "affecting their ability to concentrate in lessons".

Mr Reid was speaking to the All-Party Group on School Food.

Mr Reid and Ms Price, the writer, TV reality show star and model also known as Jordan, divorced last month and he is now engaged to former Big Brother contestant Chantelle Houghton.

He won Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother in 2010.

'Compulsory'

Mr Reid told MPs about plans to raise £1 billion 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.

"The important thing is the Let's Do Lunch marketing would help companies investing in the scheme to generate more revenues," he said.

"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," <link> <caption>she told the Sunderland Echo this week.</caption> <url href="http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/local/former-cage-fighter-alex-reid-helps-sunderland-mp-with-school-dinners-study-1-4477838" platform="highweb"/> </link>