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

Debate contribution by Mr Danny Baker on 13 April 2026.

MLA: Mr Danny Baker
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 13 April 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Private Members' Business
Heading: Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5483599

Text

I thank the Member for giving way. I was going to make that point. The lowest-income families qualify for free school meals, and the Minister had a wee pop at those families. I did not want the debate to go down that route, but it is clear from his intervention that that is what he is going to do. The Member mentioned figures. I can reassure Members that my figures were provided by the Assembly's Research and Information Service (RaISe) team, which did great work, and I worked really hard alongside the Bill Office staff to make sure that all of our facts were right. The Minister is probably adding God knows what inflation rate to suit his narrative. As I said in my earlier remarks, it would cost 0·6% of the Education budget. The Minister is happy to spend that sort of percentage of his budget on his own priorities. For example, TransformEd is costing tens of millions of pounds, yet his senior officials will say that that is a small proportion —
— of the budget.

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

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