Debate contribution: Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr David Brooks on 13 April 2026.

MLA

Mr David Brooks

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

13 April 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill: Second Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5483226

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I listened to Danny's contribution and I recognise, as we all will, that it is a sensitive issue. Chronic poverty and poverty involving families who find themselves in short-term difficulty due to difficult circumstances arising and the resulting financial struggles are issues that all of us across this Chamber deal with through our offices, particularly, but not exclusively, in winter periods, when costs are higher, fuel is needed and so on. Members and the general public will probably instinctively think that, on the face of it, the Bill is good and that it is ethical and moral to support those in our society who are struggling and the least well off, particularly children. There is a problem, however. The Assembly is not here to be just a factory for nice ideas and worthy ideals. We are not here to just tell people what they would like to hear, wilfully blinding ourselves at times, as we do, to the financial realities of the Executive. If we want to achieve a good and worthy aim, such as supporting those in poverty, we have a duty to consider how best we can do that. I am not sure whether the Bill does that. Ending poverty or best supporting those who are struggling in that way is right. It is so blatantly, obviously right to provide such support that we have long had a system for doing so — indeed, the United Kingdom was a forerunner and leader in that respect — called the welfare system. It seems to me that the Bill is a top-up welfare payment for some by another name. To note that is not to oppose the principle of such support, but it is important to the consideration. Children do not fall into poverty by themselves. They do so because their family, their parents, their guardians or their support networks are, for a time, without the resources and means to meet their needs. Usually, when a child faces that kind of poverty, the adults are already going without to provide all that they can. Let us be clear: nobody in our society should be in a position where they cannot afford the basics. There is no more fundamental and basic a need than the need for food, but that is an issue for the welfare system, which falls in part with Westminster and in part with our own Department for Communities. It is absolutely not a responsibility for the Department of Education. I said recently at the Education Committee, as we discussed the Children’s Services Co-operation Act (Northern Ireland) 2015 with regard to issues relating to the Department of Health, that cooperation is absolutely necessary. However, if it is to be viable, it cannot simply mean the responsibilities of one Department being passed over to another. Helpfully, the Communities Minister is not resisting progress on this issue. He has brought forward a poverty strategy to address these very issues. However, the Executive have not yet allocated a single penny. The same Sinn Féin Finance Minister who is overseeing the chronic underfunding of our education system has also shown no desire to further fund interventions on poverty, yet here we have a Bill that would pull resources from an education system that already has mammoth challenges with its budget. The Department of Education undertook to roll out a scheme during COVID, and there has been a much-repeated call to roll out something similar to that which was done in unique and emergency circumstances when there were significant additional funds from central government for issues to be resolved.

We had that in the case of mental health interventions, which were good ones. Pat often talks about Healthy Happy Minds, and everyone agrees that those were positive interventions, but some of us also recognise the reality that those took place in exceptional times, when resources and realities were different. Everybody can see that the education system is struggling to meet financial demands. We can look at our school estate and the pressures on SEN provision. The Minister of Education has made efforts to ramp up childcare with significant investment to support families. The Minister has done exceptionally well with the resources that he has. The reality, however, is that he faces Executive underfunding to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. I say all that to make the point that it matters where resources sit. It matters that duties sit with the right Department, and it is essential in proposing new resource-intensive plans that we consider where the money will come from. The Bill will not tackle the underlying structural problems that bring about poverty in the way that Mr Lyons's proposals seek to do. It is not good enough that something is virtuous; it must also be done in the right way and with due consideration for resource. I am interested to hear what conversations Sinn Féin, in bringing the Bill forward, have had with the Finance Minister in order to properly resource the education system before demanding that it takes on the responsibilities of other Departments, particularly when the Department that is responsible for poverty alleviation has itself received no support for work in that area. I make the point that there is and will be a question of fairness and consistency as well. Many low-income families who may not meet the strict eligibility criteria for free school meals also struggle during holiday periods but receive no additional support, often missing out on repeated supports because those supports often use the same criteria, which exclude them repeatedly. That creates a system where assistance is unevenly distributed, potentially fostering resentment and perceptions of inequality for those whom we often call the "working poor". There are other issues that I will look at as the Committee for Education considers the Bill. However, let us be clear: nobody in the Chamber is against poverty alleviation. That is as obvious as motherhood and apple pie; I do not think that anyone in the Chamber honestly believes that about others, regardless of our differing views and ideologies. Of course, making sure that every child is fed is a fundamental concern for us all, but the who and how matters. The strategy to ensure that we target and roll back poverty and do not just treat the symptoms also matters. The place for that is welfare support, not with the Department of Education, which, as everyone else can see, is already strapped for resources. We cannot take money from the legions of challenges that we already face around school buildings, SEN provision, childcare and teachers' and school staff pay, only for demand to be placed in welfare too. Colleagues cannot keep demanding more of those challenges in full knowledge of the financial pressures that we face and knowing that the person who holds the purse strings sits on their Benches, without making significant commitments either to the needs of education or, indeed, to welfare and poverty.

1,166 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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