Debate contribution: Holiday Hunger

Debate contribution by Ms Kate Nicholl on 19 March 2024.

MLA

Ms Kate Nicholl

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

19 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Holiday Hunger

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4279614

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the proposers for tabling such an important motion. As an Assembly, we have so many issues and priorities that we need to address, but few are as important or urgent as poverty, specifically child poverty. As Danny said, our children deserve the best. When children have a good start in life, a safe and stable home and emotional support within their families and communities, they are more likely to thrive and have better outcomes throughout their life. The Northern Ireland Audit Office's (NIAO) report on child poverty, which showed that 20% of our children are living in relative poverty, is deeply concerning. Those one in five are not just a statistic; they are real people whom we are failing. In 2024, it is wholly unacceptable. The purpose of the motion is not to address the root cause of poverty. We know that we need a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy. Moreover, we know what has to go into that strategy, because the sector and the expert panel have told us and been very clear about what we need to do. The motion seeks to recognise the very real impact that the cut to the school holiday food grant has had, call for interim support and recognise the contribution that the voluntary and community sector has been making. They have shouldered the burden in the absence of our action. The rising cost of food is putting many families under huge financial pressure. People are struggling. We see and hear about it every day in our constituency offices. Food bank usage is at an all-time high. I read an article a few months ago by a principal in Craigavon who described one of her pupils fainting from hunger and a parent who literally had 16p in their purse. The only food that they were able to take home was a hamper that the school had collected for. That is shocking. I remember sitting and listening to the news while I was feeding my son porridge. Dr Julie-Ann Maney came on the radio, and she talked about the reality of child poverty and hunger in the hospitals. Toddlers and children were squirreling food away in their nappies so that they would have something to eat later on. It struck me that, for so many children in our city and across Northern Ireland, it is just not getting any better. The numbers have been so high for so long, and there is no movement on that. When schools close for the holidays, it should not signal the end of support for children who need it most. No child should have to worry about going hungry over the school holidays. The reality is that the cut to the school holiday food scheme has had the greatest impact on disadvantaged and vulnerable children. We support the motion's call for the Minister of Education to bring forward a plan to end holiday hunger. There is also a gender element. Research by the Women's Regional Consortium and Ulster University found that the impact of the cost-of-living emergency is forcing women to skip meals and go hungry in order to feed their children. Anyone who has experienced poverty and the all-consuming, debilitating shame that comes with it knows that it does not just impact physical and mental health; it often results in people getting into deeper debt. The school holiday food scheme payments have been a lifeline for so many people. The Alliance amendment seeks to:

"urgently progress and publish the review of the eligibility criteria for free school meals."

I wish to concentrate my remarks on that matter. Children from working families on low incomes are often not in receipt of free school meals and are going hungry. Teachers on already stretched budgets are doing what they can. In my constituency of South Belfast, the principal of Malone Integrated College, Mrs Moore, has been using grant money to provide free food for pupils. She said that if they did not get that meal in school, they would not get one hot meal that day. We need to address that. My colleague Nuala McAllister told me of another example in North Belfast, where one school was able to use money from Belfast City Council to provide a free meal for all pupils for the month of January. Every single child in that school, bar one, availed themselves of that. The criteria therefore really need to be amended. I have spoken about childcare investment being an anti-poverty tool, and it is welcome that there was cross-party support for that. We have also recently spoken about school uniforms being made more affordable. Hopefully, the debate will contribute to how we as an Assembly address the multiple levels of vulnerability. There is no silver bullet for this. Rather, it is about how we address the multiple levels of vulnerability. I will finish by reading something that Sheena McMullen from Action for Children said:

"We know that child poverty ruins childhoods and damages children's life chances. Children who experience poverty and hardship do worse at school, earn less as adults, suffer poorer health and are more likely to need help from a social worker. This hardship is resulting from structural and systemic barriers within the welfare and economic system, which most families have no say in. But you, and your Assembly and Executive colleagues, do."

She is right. We must do everything that we can to eradicate child poverty, to address inequalities and to ease the burden of impossible choices that people in 2024 have to make. To heat or eat is unacceptable.

930 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:53 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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