School meals: David Cameron sidesteps Jamie Oliver question over academies

David Cameron has sidestepped a direct request from Jamie Oliver to do more to ensure that academies do not undermine his campaign to improve school food. As part of a question and answer session with the prime minister in Guardian Weekend, the chef challenged Cameron to say if he was committed to the continued investment in improving school food, particularly in the new academies. Cameron replied: "Cooking with my own children is one of the things I enjoy most, and when people see the connection between diet and behaviour and obesity and all the rest of it, they see why this is not an add-on but a must-have. "But in the end you've got to encourage schools to take this seriously themselves. My own children's school has just put in proper kitchens and food on-site, and my children have given up the packed lunch and gone to the school dinner, and we want to see that happen elsewhere." Cameron did not respond to Oliver's fear that academies are sidestepping tougher regulations on school food. Oliver had challenged Cameron to do more to teach life skills including cooking and food education "in the light of rocketing obesity rates in the UK and the spiralling costs to the NHS of diet-related diseases". Separately Oliver has accused the education secretary, Michael Gove, of "eroding" school meal standards. He expressed concern that academies were not obliged to sign up to the regulations introduced by the previous government. Oliver told BBC News: "The bit of work that we did which is law was a good bit of work for any government. So to erode it, which is essentially what Mr Gove is doing – his view is we let schools do what they want. I think that's a wonderful ambition, that everyone's going to be brilliant, but headteachers are more pushed than ever, expected to do more than ever, now they have to be entrepreneurial caterers as well as everything else they have to do. "The standards are there to really keep everyone on their game. It's not a large amount of paperwork, it really isn't, and for what it's for, which is essentially the future of our country, it's really important."