Debate contribution: Holiday Hunger

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 19 March 2024.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

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 4279662

Read the official Assembly record

Text

As Members across the House have stated, there is widespread support for the motion and the amendment, and that is welcome. I thank the Members who tabled the motion. Holiday hunger is a critical issue that we, as an Assembly, need to try to address. I do not want to go through each contribution one by one. We can summarise them fairly quickly by saying that absolutely everybody here agreed that tackling child poverty should be a priority for every Member. Everybody has agreed that a cross-party approach is needed. Everybody has also agreed that the community and voluntary sector does an awful lot of heavy lifting in this space and has had to do that in the absence of a functioning Executive, which is not acceptable. There is widespread agreement on those points, so, on that basis, I will not go through each contribution. I do, however, want to make a few comments about our amendment and the substantive motion and maybe respond to some of the Minister's comments. There are approximately 96,000 children in Northern Ireland who are entitled to free school meals. The latest figures show us that there is only about a 79% uptake of free school meals, which means that about 20% of children who are entitled to those meals are potentially missing out. The 'Northern Ireland Poverty and Income Inequality Report, 2021/22' shows us that, during that period, there were approximately 83,000 children living in relative poverty and approximately an additional 68,000 living in absolute poverty. That means that there could be in the region of 55,000 children measured as being in some form of poverty in Northern Ireland who are not currently accessing free school meals. We know that there are many reasons why that might be the case, but we need to think seriously about how we address that and whether auto-enrolment for free school meals could be considered. We also need to prioritise policies that improve ease of access to free school meals and ensure that free school meals are as widely accessible as possible. That was the thinking behind our amendment. The Minister highlighted his intention to act on the issue and on some of the wider costs of accessing education that the motion references, but I really want to draw attention to the wording of our amendment, which is about urgency. Unfortunately, I did not pick up a huge sense of urgency in some of the Minister's remarks, and I want to emphasise that a lot of families will be looking to the summer and will be deeply concerned about holiday hunger. We want to see steps being taken to progress the review of the eligibility criteria as urgently as possible and steps to bring forward the wider strategy on holiday hunger, as the motions calls for, as quickly as possible. I will pick up on Gerry Carroll's comments. Last week, I sponsored the UNISON All We Need is Lunch campaign, which focused on UNISON's call for universal free school meal provision across Northern Ireland. I hope to see, out of the wider review of the free school meals programme, options on moving towards a universal provision. It is important that that is given serious consideration and is brought to public consultation as soon as possible.

I agree, and I will probably not be able to take any more interventions because I will not get any extra time. The cross-departmental aspect of this has been raised. This is not just about educational outcomes. It is about health inequalities, so the whole issue has to be taken in the round. I agree on that point. When the Minister makes points, we should all take them seriously. All parties need to coalesce around these issues with a united voice, but all Departments need to do that. This is not just a matter for the Department of Education. It is a matter for the Department of Health and the Department for Communities, so I call on those Departments to get behind the motion and look at what they can do on a wider anti-poverty strategy to ensure that we can deliver real progress in this space. I pay tribute to Children in Northern Ireland and the work that it has done on the active holiday hunger project. I hope that, when the Minister brings forward a plan to tackle holiday hunger, he will consider the sort of interventions that that project has made in communities. I have many more things that I could say, but time is against me, so I will conclude by confirming very clearly that Alliance was delighted to see the needs of children and young people being brought to the fore in the debate. I also hope that our amendment will receive support and that tackling food poverty among our children all-year round will be priority for every Member.

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

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