MLAs told basic human rights for children at stake amid holiday hunger Bill vote

A Bill aimed at tackling holiday hunger is about “basic human rights for children”, a campaigner has said, as MLAs are set to vote on legislation aiming to support children on free school meals.

The private member’s bill by Sinn Féin West Belfast MLA Danny Baker proposes that the 90,000 children in Northern Ireland in receipt of free schools meals receive help during the holidays, including summer, Christmas, Halloween and half-term breaks.

Concerns have been raised about the funding of the Bill, which will cost more than £20 million, and would be required to be facilitated by DUP Education Minister Paul Givan.

Stormont’s Department of Education has previously warned it is facing a funding gap of more than £800 million in 2026/27.

Speaking outside Stormont on Monday, the day before the Bill’s final stage vote on Tuesday, Mr Baker said it requires “prioritising budgets that ministers have”.

“This isn’t about cutting one thing for something else, it’s about prioritising it,” he said,

“And the minister does have his own projects that he has been funding and doesn’t get asked questions on it.”

Mr Baker referred to the minister’s TransformEd package of educational reforms, saying it is going to “cost tens of millions of pounds, and it’s not very clear whether all parties are in agreement with that”.

“There’s a raft of things that you could talk about, but today what we’re trying to do is prioritise the budgets to help end child poverty because the link between poverty and educational underachievement is there,” he said.

“The evidence is there for all to see, children who are on free school meals would finish school five times more likely not to achieve five GCSEs.

“Children are returning to school after holiday periods, months behind their peers because of being hungry, and if we want every child to reach their full potential then we’re going to have to deal with poverty, and there’ll be money spent now we’ll save in the long run.”

He added: “The minister has decisions to take, but also we have decisions to take as MLAs, that’s what we’re here to do, to take the tough decisions, and this is about prioritising our children.

“Ninety thousand children will be supported, and I’m just saying this is only one piece of a wider puzzle, we need to be doing much more, this is the very least we are doing.”

Louise McCullough, chairwoman of Elevate East, a community-led parents’ support and advocacy group based in East Belfast, said child poverty “is not inevitable; it is a political choice”.

“In a developed society, when you are saying that you can’t feed hungry children, you need to have a look in the mirror,” she said.

“That is absolutely shocking. This is not about party politics. This is about basic human rights for children, which should cross all parties, it should cross all religions, all cultures. It’s a basic right, and I think they really need to recognise that.”

Ms McCullough described the difficulties faced by families as the cost of living and energy prices squeeze household finances.

“I know mums who have sold their car recently so that they can make ends meet over the winter period, which obviously then reduces quality of life,” she said.

“It’s really, really challenging out there, and I think what’s associated with that is feelings of shame and feelings that there’s something wrong with you, that everybody else can manage this but you can’t and that is just not the case.

“That shame does not belong to the families and the parents who are working so hard to provide for their children, that shame belongs to the politicians who say ‘oh, there isn’t enough money to feed the children’. There is, we have enough of everything.”

DUP leader Gavin Robinson said Mr Baker’s Bill is “a classic example of the irresponsibility of Sinn Féin”.

Referring to his party’s education minister, he said: “This minister is already having to cut his cloth in a way that is going to be difficult and damaging for families.

“Families with children, families in education, and yet the absurdity of asking the Assembly to set aside an additional 30 million out of an already overstretched budget makes no sense.”

There has been discussion as to whether the DUP will lodge a petition of concern, a mechanism that forces a cross-community vote, and a majority from both of the traditional viewpoints in Northern Ireland on the Bill.

Asked if his party would be bringing a petition of concern against the Bill, Mr Robinson said they would “take our steps and outline them to you when we are ready to do so”.

“We will be responsible in the face of such reckless irresponsibility, and that is on the larger aspects of devolution, on the sustainability of the institutions, but that also attaches to the measures going through this house and the reckless disregard being shown by others,” he said.

UUP leader Jon Burrows said his party was not supporting the Bill due to funding concerns, but also would not support a petition of concern laid against it, saying MLAs should be “wise around the use” of the mechanism.

“If we overuse it, we might lose it, and I think unionism always needs to think strategically in these issues and I think we would send the wrong signal if we use the petition of concern,” he said.

“And I don’t want to get involved in bringing children and issues around poverty into the DUP strategy of consequences against Sinn Féin. I think that would be wrong.

“I am prepared to look at petitions of concern for other Bills that really gravely concern me, but not this one.”