Debate contribution: Emergency Food Parcels for Children

Debate contribution by Mr Mark Durkan on 27 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Mark Durkan

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

27 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Emergency Food Parcels for Children

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4758849

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am disappointed that we are still here debating the same issue of food insecurity and poverty. In September, Executive parties stood in the Chamber lamenting rising child poverty. Last year, the same parties vowed to tackle holiday hunger and reduce dependency on food banks. What has been done and what has changed? If a Government are to be judged on how they treat their most vulnerable citizens, surely the fact that one in five children lives in relative poverty — rising to one in four in areas of high deprivation — is a damning indictment of their leadership. Every Member who has spoken has referred to statistical increases in just about every area that we do not want to see them in. Those figures are even more striking in areas of high deprivation and in communities, like my constituency, where families feel the pain of political failure the most. Behind those figures are families — starving and freezing families. How is that being allowed to happen? Poverty is a reality for far too many families and it is exacerbated here because the leadership parties have, in the not-too-distant past, put short-term political popularity over doing what is right for the people whom they purport to represent. As of 2023, 109,000 children were deprived of the basic necessities. To those who have held these institutions to ransom and prevented action for five out of the past eight years, you should be ashamed of the Dickensian conditions that your actions have compounded. Understanding why child poverty exists here is not a difficult equation. The child poverty strategy ended in 2022 in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and an economy reeling in a post-pandemic landscape. The strategy was a bit of an empty vessel. It made a lot of noise but did not hold a wild pile of substance. There were no clear targets, no prevention or early intervention and no understanding or appreciation of cross-cutting responsibilities. We have been denied an anti-poverty strategy for two decades. The previous Communities Minister gave assurances that it would be implemented within the previous mandate. I appreciate that we have been told that it is now ready to go. I fear that it might be coming just a bit late in the day, but better late than never. Where is the sense of urgency? The lackadaisical approach to date is an insult. I know that we are talking about child poverty here today, but when I talk about a lack of urgency, I want to draw attention to the lack of urgency around older people and fuel poverty. It has just been revealed to me today in an answer from the Minister that, to date, not one penny of the much-heralded £100 winter fuel support payment has been paid out. If that does not exemplify a lack of urgency, I do not know what does. The two-child policy, as others have said, is inflicted on tens of thousands of households here, and we will see that bite more acutely as more people move to universal credit. Of claimants here, 42% are either behind on bills and credit payments or find it a constant struggle to keep up. Yet, the Minister has no plans to address the debt-inducing five-week wait for universal credit. The proposer of the motion, quite rightly, identified the role that that is actually playing in driving people towards unscrupulous, illegal and immoral moneylenders. Families are no longer just about managing. Under callous Tory policy, compounded by Executive absence and apathy, they are working on the breadline. It will take a long time and a real commitment to undo that damage. Certainly, the Labour Party has not got off to a good start in doing so. It is important that, as an Assembly, we look at what we can do here to protect our citizens and at what we can do to influence and improve policy in that other place and how it impacts on our most vulnerable citizens. My party will support the motion and, indeed, the amendment. We will support any initiatives that come from the Minister and the Executive to tackle the rising scourge of poverty across our communities.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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