Debate contribution: Free School Meals Provision

Debate contribution by Mr Jon Burrows on 25 November 2025.

MLA: Mr Jon Burrows
Party at the time: Ulster Unionist Party
Date: 25 November 2025
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Opposition Business
Heading: Free School Meals Provision
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5259049

Text

It is an important motion, and not one that I will use in any way to score points over. It raises a real issue about how we can better support our young people. I agree that it cuts across many Departments: Education, Health, Communities and Justice. In the long-term aspiration, there is a real test as to whether, as an Executive and a body politic, we are committed to real prevention and to improving life, health and society outcomes and that we can commit to something that is really ambitious, even if the money is not obviously available right now. Let me just preface say that by saying that free school meals are very important. I have been going around schools in the past number of weeks, particularly primary schools so far, and it is very clear how important the free school meals are, but it is also clear that people who are just outside the eligibility suffer significantly. That is why I think that the argument to raise the eligibility for free school meals is important. Whilst dealing with the issue of free school meals, I want to touch on another issue, which is a very tangible thing, and perhaps the Minister could give it some thought. When I spoke to two principals, they told me that those who apply for free school meals have to wait six weeks or so for the checks to go through and to be told that they are eligible for the free school meal. In the intervening time, for parents who could not afford the meal, the schools were actually paying for it, but there is no mechanism to recoup that money. In the broad scale of things, it would not cost a significant amount to have a policy tweak that, if you apply for free school meals and are successful, any outlay in the intervening time, whether by the school or the parents, could be reimbursed. That is the way that it has been explained to me. It is a small thing, which would probably not be a huge cost, but that would certainly help. On the recent increase in the price of school meals, we are not a party that lives in a utopia of, "This is free; this should be free and that should be free". Inflation goes up, and food prices go up, and we understand that it puts pressure on school meal prices, but it should be the last thing to increase. In particular, a 20% increase is very difficult to budget for. I know that, probably because of the laudable effort of trying to avoid school meal price increases, we almost get to the point where we have to increase them by more than the cost of inflation. There is learning there in that, if we are going to increase them, it would actually be better and easier for families to budget if it were done incrementally and gradually, even if it came to the same amount. That said, I still think that the increase in school meal prices should be reviewed. The real ambition that I would love to get to is this. I spent some time with one union and several teachers, and we talked about the inequalities in our society: there are children who will live much longer than others, and there are children who will have much lower life opportunities.
It may not be today, tomorrow or even for some time, but if, somehow, the Executive can take a leap of faith and have a real ambition to fund, through different Departments, the opportunity for children of all ages, particularly primary-school children, to sit down together and have a free school meal with different types of healthy food, I wonder whether that might have a transformational impact on outcomes in health, opportunities and reliance on benefits in 20, 30 or 40 years' time. That is why I look at the motion with ambition. It is not about hammering the Minister, who has a difficult job to do. The money is not immediately there to do this. There is an element of aspiration, however: if we can find a way to increase the provision of school meals, make them sociable and about learning and create a sense in children, away from screens, of sharing food together on a greater level, it will help not just nutrition but a range of social things. That would be really powerful. There are good things in the motion. It is fair to say that it is aspirational. We certainly do not expect the Minister to write a cheque for £200 million.
That is me concluded.

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

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