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

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 13 April 2026.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance 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 5483607

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I felt that the Bill sponsor should be given the opportunity to speak to those points. I cannot guarantee that I will give way for as long for any other interventions. I have covered a fair bit on evidence and on being sure that we have evidence that the output from the Bill will have an impact that we can measure and that we will be able to understand what success looks like. That will be looked at in more detail at Committee Stage. The NI Audit Office report further highlighted fragmented and inconsistent approaches to evaluation across the programmes, limiting the Department's ability to understand what works and where to channel future investment. That is how the Audit Office is characterising how we measure the Department's current interventions to tackle educational disadvantage. If we are looking seriously at new spend, we need to be clear about how the impact will be measured on the other side of that. We all know about the financial crisis that our education system is facing, and the Minister has highlighted it. "Crisis" is an appropriate word to use. The current budgetary position in Education is dire, and, regrettably, we often see that the people who are impacted most are the families who are least able to afford it. The recent increase in the cost of school meals is an example of where, very often, the costs land at the doors of those who are least able to bear them. When we are in a budgetary crisis, we need to be clear that we do not end up penalising those who are least able to bear its costs. As I mentioned earlier, tackling child poverty is a cross-departmental issue. Today, obviously, we are looking at a Bill that is exclusively going through the Department of Education and its statutory roles and functions. We can look at it as a cross-Executive issue, not just an issue for Education. The Northern Ireland Audit Office has estimated that tackling child poverty will cost between £850 million and £1 billion per year. Despite the investments that we have put in, we know that we are not always producing the best outcomes for those in need. Often, we end up in a scenario where the community and voluntary sector steps in and plays a large role in closing the gaps where provision cannot meet need. It is important to pay tribute to the organisations that go above and beyond, every day, to support the families, children and young people who are in dire need, and our education staff — teachers, school leaders and classroom assistants — who I know, from stories that I hear, often support families and children out of their own pockets, or engage them with support services in their local communities. We should not be in a scenario where school staff are having to step in in that way, but that is the level of need. We also have the Executive's anti-poverty strategy. Again, I do not think that we should look continually to the community and voluntary sector to provide the answers to everything. That is important to note, because it is a cross-Executive issue. In his remarks, the Minister is likely to take issue with the fact that this is being funnelled through his Department and not other Departments. In response to an Assembly question on the matter, the Education Minister advised that he had met with the Communities Minister to discuss the issue of child food poverty, including how it can impact on families during and outside school term time, but I am not clear on the outcome from that meeting. I do not see holiday hunger appearing in the strategy or being given any ongoing significant focus from the Education or Communities Ministers. I hope that this debate will be an impetus for us to hear from both Ministers about what they are doing in this space, because, up to now, I have not seen any evidence of that. From engaging with the Bill sponsor, I understand that the legislation will amend an Education Order, and, despite the fact that this is a cross-departmental issue, it will sit firmly within the remit of the Department of Education. As the legislation progresses, or even today, the Bill sponsor could provide clarity, because I am keen to understand why the decision was taken to just go through the lens of the Department of Education and why multi-departmental solutions were not considered. The issue clearly crosses Education, Communities and Health, and it crosses over the work and responsibilities of those three Departments.

I thank the Member for responding. I understand that. We are in a limited and shortened mandate, and I understand that we cannot do everything. I would be interested to see whether there is a way to knit some of this together to see how Departments can engage.

I thank the Member for his intervention. The best intervention is the Departments that have responsibilities in this area working together and using the provisions of the Children's Services Co-operation Act to come forward with genuinely jointly planned and jointly commissioned services that can impact on those who most need them. I see no evidence of that happening, and we hear that at the Education Committee all the time.

I will give way.

I thank the Member for that intervention.

I will not give way. I will raise that issue in my remarks later, and I imagine that the Bill sponsor will address that. A significant sum of money is being proposed. It has been suggested that it will cost £20 million a year. The Minister perhaps disputes those figures. I am clear that there are obvious benefits in what is being proposed, and I think that all of us want to see children being able to receive a nutritious diet outside term time. I do not think that any of us will object to that. My party and I will support the Bill's progress through Second Stage today, but, given the current budgetary position, we have to be clear that we are looking at a recurring financial commitment. Have all the options been explored to ensure that the proposed spend is the most effective way to do it? We can work through that at Committee Stage. I would like to know what other options have been considered, because, to me, a whole range of other things could be looked at. We have talked before at the Education Committee, and have debated it in motions, about auto-enrolment for free school meals, and we have talked about widening access to free school meals. We have talked about moving to a universal approach and about how to maximise uptake of free school meals. There is a whole range of different things, so it is important that we have a clear sense of what options have been considered during the process that led to the Bill being presented to the Assembly. I want to reference the research done by the Commissioner for Children and Young People, because it speaks to some of the questions about what is the most effective intervention. Research by the commissioner has raised some:

"concerns about the adequacy of current Free School Meals (FSM) eligibility criteria as an effective method for targeting the provision of FSM and uniform grants".

The commissioner asked whether that is the most effective way of doing it, and the Bill very much ties interventions to that. The paper highlights the fact that entitlement to free school meals is often a poor indicator of a child being in poverty, saying:

"41% of children in poverty are not eligible for FSM."

That is a stark statistic. You could have 41% of families in poverty not benefiting from the intervention. Again, that raises for me the question of ensuring that, if we are going to commit to the spend, it is the most effective mechanism that we can deliver.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) has also provided data. It suggests that fewer than one in three children in poverty are in receipt of free school meals, that the majority of children currently in receipt of free school meals were not experiencing poverty and that it was those on the edge of entitlement who may be more at risk of experiencing poverty. Some of those statistics give me a little cause for concern that, by tying it so tightly to free school meals, we could miss out some of the children who need the intervention most.

I understand that. For me, it is about wanting to put on record at this stage that it is important that we consider all of that in the round. I am clear that I am happy to support the intentions and policy intent behind the Bill. It is about ensuring that we have the right evidence base and that there are not other, more effective interventions that may well, potentially, deliver better outcomes. I will go back to my colleague Kellie Armstrong's point about wider issues in the benefits system, which is really the only other issue that I want to put on the record today. I want to note a slight concern, without saying that it will inevitably be an outworking of the Bill, that, if we make the payments, we must ensure that they will not impact negatively on anybody's current and ongoing benefit entitlement. Will appropriate exemptions be applied to means-tested benefits or the likes of carer's allowance that have very tight and narrow income thresholds? Does it require Westminster to deliver any of that, or can consequential amendments arise for the Department for Communities to take forward? I am happy for the Bill sponsor to speak to those assurances in his winding-up speech. We would not want to leave anybody worse off on the back of receiving any of the payments. Alliance is happy to support the proposal at Second Stage. We recognise and are clear that there is a need to invest in anti-poverty measures to support the most vulnerable learners in education. We remain concerned that, across Departments, not enough resource is being directed into that area. However, there are those few points on which we would like to see greater clarity, particularly the evidence base that this intervention will make the greatest impact, given the significant funding that is being committed to it. Again, those are issues that we can explore at Committee Stage. I look forward to engaging in that process over the next number of weeks. I thank the Bill sponsor for bringing it forward.

1,776 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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