Debate contribution: Food Security

Debate contribution by Mr David Honeyford on 1 December 2025.

MLA

Mr David Honeyford

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

1 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Food Security

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5269594

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are approaching another Christmas when families across Northern Ireland are struggling with food prices, energy bills and the rising cost of living. Yes, the Assembly should talk about food security, because it goes to the heart of whether people can afford to heat their home and put food on the table. From the point of view of the Department for the Economy, it matters even more. The food and drink sector is one of our largest employers. It is one of our most stable industries and one of the few sectors in which we genuinely punch above our weight. It supports tens of thousands of jobs, as has been said, and it is essential for rural communities and regional balance. It is a hugely important industry in which there is real money, real jobs and real security. It is also about families in our community. Although we are having this debate after years of rising food prices, one of the biggest drivers of food prices is energy costs. Our bills are still tied to global gas prices, which are shaped by wars around the world and instability in international politics. Those shocks feed directly into farm and business costs and on to the price of goods on our supermarket shelves. We on this island have the ability to become self-sufficient in energy. That is the transition on which we need to be focused if we want long-term lower costs to deliver real energy security. Alongside food security, we need a proper master plan from the Department for the Economy on renewables, biogas and all those future technologies. That links in with the wider rural community. Once again in the Chamber we have the DUP tabling a motion that chooses division. Instead of focusing on what makes people's lives better, we are yet again dragged back into yet another debate in another week about the Windsor framework, which is a direct consequence of the very Brexit that the DUP championed. You cannot push for Brexit, create all the barriers and then act as though you are shocked when the consequences land, nor can you set fire to regulatory frameworks and then complain that there is smoke in the room. Businesses tell us all the time that they want stability and certainty and clear, easy access to information and support for investment. Our agri-food sector thrives because food can be moved seamlessly across the island. The final product can trade to the UK, the South and into EU markets. Again and again, through such negative motions, the DUP talks Northern Ireland down — every time. Fact is fact: dual market access is growing our economy. Our growth figures are different from those in the rest of the UK. We see that with real jobs and growth, and we see our economy starting to pick up and grow. We see jobs being created. Across the Chamber, I see that DUP Members are shaking their heads. They do not live in the same world as the rest of us and the community out there. People in my constituency have a job today because they have dual market access. Food producers are creating jobs today because they have dual market access. The facts are clear. You can shake your heads and bury them in the sand, but that is actual fact. Keeping our supply chains open in every direction strengthens food security. We should build on that advantage, not talk it down or try to tear it down. If we are serious about growth, the Department for the Economy needs to bring that master plan for energy through to allow investors and local communities in rural areas to have confidence not in a strategy but in a plan of action. Farmers need to be part of that solution. I see their commitment every day. I live in a rural community. I married a farmer's daughter, and my brother-in-law and wider family still farm. They are being badly let down, not only by the authors of the motion — it is another case of 'The Grand Old Duke of York', where everybody is marched to the top of the hill and then left lying — but also, to be frank, by the Ulster Farmers' Union, which continues to choose outrage over outcomes. Food security is important. It needs to be prioritised but not as a political stunt and not to raise stuff about the Windsor framework. Our people deserve better than division dressed up as debate.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:06 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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