Debate contribution: Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill: Further Consideration Stage
Debate contribution by Mr Peter Martin on .
- MLA
- Mr Peter Martin
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 12 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill: Further Consideration Stage
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5786425
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you to the Chair of the Education Committee. I absolutely believe that, if we can provide alleviation to hungry children, we absolutely should, but I am clear that the Bill is not the vehicle by which to do that, regardless of whether we had £23 million. I am speaking to amendment No 6, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. If we had £23 million, I would have a question about how best to use it. If somebody were to gift the Assembly £23 million — the Bill sponsor is looking at me and smiling — I would ask this: how do we best deliver that money legitimately into the mouths of the children who most require it? The Minister might touch on this, but, on the wider point that the Chair referenced with regard to amendment No 6, I have certainly not heard anything about whether the Finance Minister has committed to ring-fencing that money in the Budget. The Member may be more in tune than I am, however, since I have not been on the Committee for a while. That ring-fencing should be done, because the Bill as amended at Consideration Stage puts additional pressure on an already overcommitted Education Department, which cites some of the issues that the Committee Chair raised in his contribution. I will continue, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker, and, as I said, my comments will be brief. I only have another couple of points to make. The Bill focuses on school-aged children who are entitled to free school meals, and does not deal with the wider societal issue of food poverty, which affects many families. The Bill is undoubtedly a mechanism to address that, but I suppose that my issue is that the Department of Education should not be the vehicle. I accept that there is a legitimate argument: food poverty is absolutely clear and present in our society as it stands, but it is unusual in the extreme to put the vires for addressing that on the Department of Education rather than dealing with it at Executive level. When considering that alongside the funding challenges that already exist for the Department, I have a series of questions. On that note, I read, with great interest, the Education Endowment Foundation's report on the impact of school breakfast clubs throughout the UK, as I am sure the Bill sponsor will have.
School breakfast clubs have an incredible impact on kids' ability to function effectively in school, because, as has been mentioned in the Chamber, perhaps even by the Bill sponsor at previous stages, a hungry child does not learn well. Children should not be going to school hungry. That has been really effective, and I wanted to point it out. However, the EEF research highlights that as being during school — the breakfast clubs and their support address the issue during school time when the children are learning and studying. I will cite another one: the Trussell 2025 report, 'Hunger in the UK', also highlights the continuing scale of hardship and the effect that it has on our children. You can accept both of those reports, you can look at the Bill and agree with those reports and the impact that, they clearly say, hunger has on children and you can still say, as I am doing today, that this is not the right vehicle to address those issues. Everyone in the Chamber will say that addressing those issues is mission-critical, but that is something that the Executive — not the Education Minister — have to take on board, address and respond to, and it should not be done through a private Member's Bill that, ultimately, will put the Education Minister under pressure to find £23 million of recurrent resource that he does not have in his budget. That is our issue with the Bill. I urge Members to support the amendments.
645 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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