Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): The Bill sponsor — Danny Baker MLA — will be familiar to members. Danny is switching roles today, so there is a wee bit of a mix-up in what side of the table that people are sitting on. Patrick Gaffney is also joining us, who is a policy adviser from Sinn Féin. You are both welcome to the Committee.

We have had the Second Stage debate, so a lot of the principles of the Bill should be fresh in everybody's mind. I am happy to hand over to you at this stage for opening remarks or a presentation of up to 10 minutes, after which we will move into questions from members.

Mr Danny Baker (Northern Ireland Assembly): Thank you, Chair. You will be glad to know that I will keep my remarks brief.

I will start from where I left off in the Chamber: this is the Bill that I have fought hard for. I have worked on it for the past number of years, along with our team. We are proud of it. I thank everyone who has helped along the way, including the Bill Office, the Speaker's Office and all Members who participated not just in the debate on Monday but in the related motions that we have had since we have been back in the Assembly.

It is important legislation. The policy intent is to support 90,000 children across the North who are in receipt of free school meals. That is the policy intent; that is what we want to do. We know that this is not the silver bullet when it comes to child poverty, but it is one piece of a wider puzzle. I said that a lot the other day. I want to put that piece on the table in this mandate. I hope that other Members will introduce further Bills if they are needed.

I would much prefer not to be sitting in front of you today with the Bill. The programme was cut because it could be cut; it was not on a statutory footing. It was a successful programme that helped so many children. When it was cut, there was a massive rise in food parcels; I think that, according to research by Trussell, there was a 49% rise. I would like to think on the basis of the debate on Monday that, if we had been back in the Assembly, it would not have been cut. If I were a Minister, it would have been my day-1 priority. It is the very least that the Department of Education should do. Other Departments also need to step up.

I listened attentively on Monday to everyone. I get it: when it is a motion, it is a lot easier to say your piece and then sit down. The Bill will have an impact on budgets; it will have an impact on the Education budget. It is an amendment to the "Provision of milk, meals and related facilities" provisions of the Education and Libraries Order 1986. It is an attachment to that. The best vehicle to deliver it through is free school meals. The Education Department has all the evidence and data. It has done it before, and I really hope that it can do it again.

As I said, I am here to work with everybody. I am open to working with the Minister and his officials. I have had a lot of engagement over the past two years with charities and school leaders. I have spoken about my experience in a youth club with children. That programme was run after this one was cut. Our community and voluntary sector is providing that support. No child should be worrying about food and filling their wee pockets. How are they meant to learn if they are hungry?

I want to finish this. I was going through what everyone said on the motions, and Kate Nicholl put it best. I will finish by reading what Kate said. She is no longer on our Committee, but she said:

I could not say that any better.

I am happy to take questions.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you, Danny. I will flag at the start of the session that we have two briefings on private Members' Bills (PMBs) and then we will have the General Teaching Council Bill as well, so I ask members to work with us on the time today so that we can get through the sessions in good time.

I will start with a broad question to pick up on some of my remarks in the Second Stage debate. It is about ensuring that we target this as effectively as possible. You have been really clear in articulating the issue. I do not think that anybody, from their contributions at Second Stage, questioned the fact that children are experiencing issues with food poverty outside term time — and in term time, regrettably, as well. According to a statistic from the Children's Commissioner, 41% of children who are classed as living in poverty are not on free school meals. When you were putting together the Bill and looking at policy options, was there a range of things that you looked at on ensuring that that is most effectively targeted?

Mr Baker: At its crudest, the evidence regarding the most vulnerable in society is that, for those who are on a low income and who qualify for free school meals, the threshold is low. An obvious anti-poverty measure is to look at thresholds, but, when you look at thresholds, you quickly ask, "Where do you stop?".

Ending holiday hunger will always be needed if we are to tackle any part of child poverty. However, as we move forward as an Assembly and through mandates, we need to look at universal free school meals. That has to be a big part of it. You mentioned it. That is a phased approach. Every action will have consequences for budgets, but what do we want to do with the budgets that we have? This is a good start.

Would I like to help even more children? Yes. It is primary legislation now. To be honest, there are thousands of people on universal credit (UC) here who are over the threshold as well. If you were to incorporate that to bring them in, the cost goes up. We were given a scope by the Speaker at the beginning of this, as is anyone who is going through the process of a private Member's Bill. It is a fair point: you should be narrow in your approach. Too wide, and the implications become too much for one Minister or one Department, and they have to have a role in it.

I said in my opening remarks that I would have much preferred that the Minister took this forward. One of the other actions that you have to take is to write to that Minister to see whether they have any aspirations to introduce such legislation. I did that years ago when we first came back, and the answer was no and that they would work with their colleagues in Communities. I have yet to see anything that tells me that that will happen and that they will play a role in ending child poverty.

I have not shied away from wanting to do this. From day 1, I have spoken about it in here and in the Chamber, on social media and to anybody who would listen to me. I really believe in it, so the Departments knew that we were going to do it, Ministers knew that we were going to do it, so what have they been doing? You cannot just wait until the Second Stage debate, half listen to Members, and say, "We agree with it. It is noble": why not agree to it in principle? There is an opportunity to agree to it and say, "Let's work together and see what we can come up with".

In all the work that we have done, in all the evidence that we have taken and all the groups and charities that we met, this is the best targeted approach that you can deal with in that narrow scope, and it is a really good one to have. If it ends up being wider and people do other things to it, I am here to play that role and work with you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I completely take that point. If you are talking about raising thresholds, the question is where you stop. That is the appeal of universality as a long-term goal. I understand that.

Mr Patrick Gaffney (Sinn Féin): I will come back on some of that. On the targeted nature of it, in some ways, as an indicator, free school meals can be quite crude. We saw that in the outworkings of the RAISE project last year or the year before. The Department has done research on those metrics and indicators, and it found that free school meals probably is the best indicator that we have available to us because it captures a snapshot of each child. You can use geographic, regional and other indicators, but, if you are dealing with kids and families on low incomes and you accept the logic that it is right and proper that those kids are supported during term time, that dictates that you would support them during the summer holidays.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is building on the framework that exists, yes.

I will move on to some slightly more technical bits of the Bill that came up during the debate. One issue that, I have to admit, was not on my radar and that the Minister raised was a potential problem with assessing the rate of payment in post-primary schools. He said that there is not a fixed price for a free school meal because young people often have choice in that canteen-type system. He seemed to suggest that that is an issue. Was that on your radar? Did you reflect on that when drafting the Bill?

Mr Baker: Let us go back to what it used to be: it was £2·70, for example. It is probably easier to explain the situation in primary schools. With my wee lad, I pay £3·10 a day, so, on a Sunday, you pay £15·50. In post-primary schools, the Education Authority (EA) increased the price. It publishes all this information, by the way. It raised that by 19·25%, so it is at £3·34.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Was that a red herring from the Minister in the Chamber?

Mr Baker: Yes. I use my wee lad as an example. He is not on free school meals. He uses a thumbprint and thinks that it is brilliant. You have options of meals. He likes chicken curry but does not like rice. On the meals, it is chicken curry and rice, which is £3·34. Say it is a yoghurt or a drink, I am not 100% sure what they offer on that. The other thing is chicken and chips, which is £3·34. If he wants chicken curry and chips, he has to buy two meals. It is set there.

When we were giving the direction to the drafters, it was that there has to be a price set. If the EA is going to charge £3·10 in primary schools, you have to pay that back to those who

if you are going to do it over the holidays. To me, it is a natural way of doing it, but, again, I am happy to sit down with any officials to see what they think. If they think that that is a wee bit too clunky, I am happy to listen to what they say, but, for me, it is a bit of a red herring.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful.

Mr Gaffney: For the purposes of the legislation, it is more credible to use the pricing that is already available publicly. It just makes sense.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It seems slightly odd to publish a price publicly and then say, "That is not a real price", which seemed to be what the Minister was saying.

Mr Baker: We have future-proofed it. The EA publishes that, but we are putting it on a standing so that, legally, it has to do that. That price will be there.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is grand. There are a couple of other points that I might raise, but I will see where other members go with their questions.

Deputy Chair, do you want to come in?

Mr Sheehan: No, I am OK.

Mr Brooks: Thanks for your presentation, Danny. I will come back to one point and give context. The previous scheme on holiday hunger was, I think, funded by the UK Government during COVID: am I right in saying that? It ended in March 2023. We have to provide the context of why there was a spike in food parcels from Trussell. You might say that it was a strange time to stop that scheme, but, again, the funding was coming from the UK Government, and March 2023 was also the time when food inflation peaked in the UK. There are contexts that perhaps should have been taken into consideration at the time, but it is an unhappy coincidence that those timelines matched up. When we talk about Trussell's stats, we need to remember that context.

I agree with the comments that have been made about how free school meals sometimes miss the working poor.

We dealt with some of this in the Chamber the other day, and the debate was not brief. You have put this at the door of the Department of Education, which is a DUP Department at the moment. In a year or two, it may not be a DUP Department. As you have said, we are all aware of the budgetary issues and the challenges that are faced there. Did you consider whether this should be pressed towards the Executive as a whole through a priority in the Programme for Government so that it could be considered cross-departmentally?

Mr Baker: As I said at the start, everyone has to have priorities, and that goes for Ministers too. I am not in the Executive and do not know what negotiations the Executive have. I am sure that it is not straightforward to get agreement on a Programme for Government, because, I do not doubt, if just one party does not want something, it does not go into a Programme for Government.

A lot of my knowledge comes from lived experience. I take the point about Trussell, and there are other factors. The cost of living is probably just as high now as it was then, if not higher. No child should go to school hungry. I have laid it at the door of the Education Department because I feel that that Department has a role to play. If each child is to reach their full potential, they need food in their belly. I want to see more, right across all —.

Mr Brooks: I am not being pedantic, Danny. This happened quite a lot in the Chamber as well — I understand why it happens — but we are not talking about them going into school to breakfast clubs, for example; we are talking about the holidays. It is not, therefore, really about feeding them so that they are active in school and can do that. It is about — I get it — making sure that kids who are in food poverty are fed during the holidays, and the Minister has outlined a few other ways in which, he thinks, that could be done. That is fine — we can get into that another time — but it is just about making sure that kids are fed. That is a noble goal, but why does that sit specifically with the Department of Education?

Mr Baker: Because the kids come back from holiday periods, particularly from lengthy holiday periods — there is a lot of evidence on this — malnourished and end up weeks or months behind their peers. That is a big problem. How can a child reach their full potential in school if they are malnourished? I know school leaders, classroom assistants and dinner ladies. I helped out our local school at a time when the Assembly was down and payments had stopped: our local football team helped out the local schools with breakfast clubs. Those schools had that support and the experience of youth clubs doing those programmes. The impact over the summer is probably the greatest, and then children go into school and do not learn.

They also end up falling out of school. That is the other side of it. Colin McGrath made a good point the other day. I have always tried to avoid getting into this, because it can stigmatise young people, but there is always a spike of trouble in our communities — whether in east or west Belfast or it could be in an interface area or a local play park — during the holidays. Kids are crying out for help; they really are. You just need to go onto 'Belfast Live' and you will see that, and the dates of the articles about such things will correlate with times when children are off school. Poverty plays a huge part in that.

I wish that I could do more, but this is the start. I am not singling out the Education Minister because he is from the DUP or anything like that; I just feel that this is the right place to start. I really hope that other pieces of legislation and strategies are brought forward before the mandate ends or, if not by then, definitely in the next mandate.

Mr Brooks: I accept that, and hopefully you —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Briefly, David.

Mr Brooks: — can accept my point of view. I know that it is a DUP Department. We are used to playing our parts in the Chamber, but I have slight misgivings about the responsibility sitting there specifically. I am not that far away from you on the principles behind the Bill and on the good work of community groups and so on in that space with breakfast clubs and so on when the Education budget is under the pressures that it is.

I hope that the Chair will indulge us for a moment. I think that we talked briefly about what you were saying about universal free school meals. I know that that is a different conversation, but, were that to end up extended into holiday payments, it would essentially become — this was my argument in the Chamber the other day — a welfare top-up. You will disagree with me, but that is where it rightly sits. Those things matter.

When we dealt with COVID at council, a lot of food parcels went out. We all stood together, which was a positive thing during a time of emergency. However, there was a lot of duplication. It also took the impetus to act away from those who should have acted; it meant that they did not have to act. It should not have been the role of councils to do that. If we were to put it into a budget where it is not supposed to be, I would have a fear about those kinds of things. I accept the virtue in what you are trying to do, but those are the things that continue to concern me.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A lot of this was rehearsed during Second Stage. It is important that we move beyond the principles of the Bill and into the detail of it.

Very quickly, Patrick.

Mr Gaffney: I have a quick point from a policy perspective, David. The way in which Danny has done it — through a private Member's Bill and attaching it to Education — represented the cleanest way to do it, given that Education has the data on free school meals, applications and all of that. To us, that represented a clean way of doing it.

Mr Brooks: In times of plenty, I could understand that simplicity. However, in the current context, it is important that we attach responsibilities to where they best sit. We can have disagreements about that, but that is where I am coming from.

Ms Hunter: I will try not to repeat anything that we debated earlier in the week.

Well done to you, Danny. We have had discussions about this work, and I can tell how hard you and your team have worked on it.

I have two questions. During your time of research and collecting data, did you get a real understanding of the broader failure of how Departments communicate, coordinate and collaborate on the specific issues of child poverty and children who experience food poverty?

Mr Baker: Yes. We do not have to go too far back in time to see how poor the collaboration can be in this place, when two Ministers did not pick up the phone to each other to talk about special school summer schemes. The fallout from that is not over yet; a lot of things were said, and it will be interesting to see how those Ministers and their officials deal with it.

I would have liked to see more coming from Communities on the anti-poverty strategy. I do not sit on the Communities Committee, but my opinion from the outside is that there is a real lack of urgency in that respect. Others who sit on the Communities Committee may say that I am being unfair to the Communities Minister, but I am not seeing it or feeling it.

I genuinely mean this: I wish that I did not have to bring the Bill forward. I wish that the issue had been addressed right from the get-go; we could then have started to build more to it. That is why I call it "one piece of a puzzle"; let us get one of the blocks down and then start putting more to it — whatever that looks like. That would mean that we are trying to eradicate child poverty. It is only getting worse. There are struggles out there. Sometimes you do not have to meet loads of organisations to see the great work that they do, because you see it on your doorstep. I tell the story of the work that I do in my youth club. Those children live only a kilometre away from me, but my children have a completely different life: that is not fair. This is playing a small part in addressing the issue. It is only a small part, but it is an important one.

Ms Hunter: I understand the mechanism of using the Department of Education. I have often thought that we should rename it the "Department for Education, Children and Young People" because everything that we do is about our children and young people.

Sinn Féin has the Finance Ministry. This is also about the Department for Communities, because the proposal could have an impact on people's benefits. What discussions have you had with the Finance Minister and the Communities Minister? Money seems to be the core issue when it comes to funding the Bill and ensuring that our children are fed. Will you detail the discussions that you have had with either the Finance Minister or the Communities Minister? Have they had any discussions with each other about child food poverty?

Mr Baker: I have not met any Ministers in that regard. I have met all the groups and done that type of work. Once the Bill was published, I wrote to all the Departments. The first departmental meeting that was able to be scheduled — people have busy diaries — was yesterday with the Department for Communities. Members raised concerns on Monday about possibly pushing people out of a threshold: I have been assured by senior officials that that will not be the case. Anyone who has ever worked on universal credit or the old historical benefits will know the differences. Universal credit is completely different. There is not a big list of things that could push you out. That is a positive of it. To my knowledge, everyone has now been moved onto UC. That would not have been the case when that scheme was in during COVID. You would have had a number of people on historic benefits who maybe needed a disregard.

I have been given reassurances that, should anything pop up with

when they have read the Bill, it would be very minor and that any wrinkles could be ironed out by officials rather than having to go any further, and I was satisfied with that. I am aware that I have done enough of my own research on that because I have someone in my office who is really good at benefits and who assured me that universal credit was different. Therefore, I think that if anything were to pop up, it would be OK.

Mr Gaffney: The question of affordability, which has come up, links into the question of collaboration. The Bill could pose the question to the Minister that, if it is not a priority for him to do this, there is nothing stopping him engaging with his ministerial colleagues at the Executive table to work at a funding package of support. Our goal, however, would be for the scheme to be funded by the Department of Education.

Mr Burrows: We have well rehearsed this, Danny. I supported the Bill going to scrutiny stage because, in principle, everyone wants to feed children well. However, I struggle with how some aspects of the Bill are being done. It is worth putting it on the record again that we are talking about making sure that children are fed not in term time and that that sits with the Department of Education. Are all your Sinn Féin colleagues supportive of the principal objective of the Bill, including your ministerial colleagues?

Mr Baker: Yes.

Mr Burrows: Yes, so presumably they would be open to having conversations at the Executive on how to find the money.

Mr Baker: Yes. I would say that everyone would look favourably at trying to help 90,000 children. As I said, this is only one small step: much more needs to be done.

Mr Burrows: Do you think that the First Minister, Finance Minister and Economy Minister would be supportive of finding the money? Let us get down to brass tacks.

Mr Baker: You could look at it in a couple of ways.

Mr Burrows: It is a simple question, Danny. Do you think they would be supportive?

Mr Baker: Every Minister has their own budget, and every Minister can spend. That is why, on Monday, I made the point that I did not want to get into a budgetary debate of what is and what is not funded. If you look at TransformED, for example, the Committee had senior officials in front of it using the crude way of saying that this is only 0·4% of the overall Budget and that is why we should spend tens of millions of pounds. If I were to say, which I did, that it was 0·6% of a budget, you would rightly question me, and say, "Other expenditure is there".

There is no real scrutiny on a Minister spending tens of millions of pounds when it comes to a policy intent. We are having to go to great lengths to put this into legislation to spend that money in that way. There are questions for every Minister on how they spend their budget. Should the will of the House be that the Bill becomes law and the Education Minister really needs that help, he should engage with his colleagues. It is not something that I have just dropped on him overnight. He has known about the issue from the day when I came into the Chamber and wrote to him about it. Where is the urgency from some Ministers to deal with child poverty, and from those who could do it? This is a great way to start that process.

Mr Burrows: To say that we will have to pay for it afterwards is fiscally irresponsible.

Mr Baker: I am not saying —

Mr Burrows: Let me finish, Danny. There are households that cannot operate like that. I was a food bank volunteer. I have given out food parcels in my own time. We need to work collegially to achieve this instead of just putting it on another Department. I feel sympathy for the Department of Education. It is not good governance, and the noble intent is tarnished by that.

Secondly, is there an administrative cost that we do not have? We talked about the cost of the money going into bank accounts: is there an administrative cost?

Mr Baker: Yes. The full cost in year 1 would be £20,202,752 for the payments. Administration costs of £34,155 are on top of that, giving a full year 1 total of £20,236,907.

Mr Burrows: OK. This is my final question. I do not shy away from difficult conversations because, as I said, I do not need to prove my compassion. I volunteer at a cafe, for example, giving my time to create money for the food bank, and I have delivered parcels. My heart is with those people. I have also spent a long time in the Police Service, and I have seen society at its best and its worst. I know that there are families of all different levels of income, background and religion for whom more cash going into their bank account does not necessarily mean nutritious food going into their child's belly. We need to see the world as it is, not the way that we want it to be. Can you give me any reassurance that there are protections for the money that we are putting into people's bank accounts ending up as nutritious food in a child's stomach? If not, are there any alternatives, such as food parcels and social supermarkets, that we could use instead?

Mr Baker: Jon, I got into politics with compassion and not judgement. Let me read this out to you to answer your question:

That was from your colleague Robbie Butler less than 18 months ago in a motion tabled by the Ulster Unionist Party, Jon. That answers your question perfectly.

Mr Burrows: We are in the same place on the noble intent. There is a difference between a non-binding motion and bringing in laws of the land.

Mr Baker: Jon, with all due respect, you have criticised Members and parties and the Executive for not bringing forward legislation. In your time as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, you have completely hammered people for only tabling motions.

Mr Burrows: I have done.

Mr Baker: You now have legislation in front of you. I know that you agree to it in principle, and I appreciate that support. However, if you are really looking to dance on the head of a pin to get out of supporting the legislation, you will really have to have a good look in the mirror.

Mr Burrows: Danny, this is the problem with our system.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Final comment, Jon, in the interests of time.

Mr Burrows: I will just finish with this. Nice words. I want to achieve the same objective as you do. I want to do it with the best value for money and with the best governance and the best outcomes. Asking questions, providing scrutiny and making sure that we get things right is not obstructive, is not getting in the way and is not cold-hearted. If we had more of that, we would have fewer bad laws. I stand over my criticism of much of the farce that goes on. We should be discussing such issues, but it should be done in a more collegial way with broad responsibility across the Executive.

Again, are there any safeguards or controls to ensure that the cash that goes into accounts ends up in nutritious food in children's stomachs? If there are not, are there options other than a cash payment such as using social supermarkets, which are established across the country?

Mr Baker: Jon, I trust parents. When it comes to the issue of stigmatisation, I will use myself as an example. I was a child in receipt of free school meals. In primary school, that was grand, no problem, but, when you hit secondary school, everyone knows when you go up and are handed a wee ticket. It is embarrassing. A voucher could be an option, but the problem that I have with that is how you would do that without putting more pressures on. Most things are now done with QR codes. What happens if you cannot afford that technology? It would then have to be in paper form. I do not want to degrade anybody where they have to walk up —

Mr Burrows: Neither do I.

Mr Baker: — with a piece of paper to do it. I really think that payments are the best way to do it.

I really trust parents. Some parents might have to give their children less, but that does not mean that they love them any less. I can spoil my children at Christmas and at Easter more than my parents could with me and more than their parents could with them. That does not mean that I and they were loved any less.

Mr Burrows: Danny, I have seen rich parents who treat their children with neglect, and I have seen parents who have nothing who are the most loving and caring. I have seen both.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Can I draw a line, Jon? The points of disagreement are clearly and well articulated, so, in the interests of time, we will move on to the next member, Michelle.

Mrs Guy: Thank you for your evidence today. You know that I support what you are trying to achieve, and it is apparent that we have to legislate to deal with holiday hunger, so I hope that we can find a way to deliver something for those kids.

Concerns have been raised about funding. I am trying to get into how the scheme will work. Danny, you indicated that you are open to talking to and working with people to find solutions. Are you open to having a phased implementation with a review period so that you can assess how well the legislation is working when it rolls out? Have you considered that yet?

Mr Baker: No. When you talk about a phased approach, do you mean that it would support the full 90,000 children and we would then evaluate it after a couple of years?

Mrs Guy: Maybe not. I mean maybe taking a smaller cohort and seeing how the legislation works in practice to assess whether it is effective and then expanding the roll-out with confidence that the value for money and the impacts that you want to see are there.

Mr Baker: Targeting the 90,000 children who receive free school meals is probably the least we could do, if I am being honest. Would I love to see it supporting more? I talked to Nick about people on universal credit. Do not quote me because my figures could be off, but I think that around 40,000 people who are on universal credit are over the threshold for free school meals. I would prefer to go the other way. Rather than go the other way, I would rather go further. If we do that, there would, obviously, be a greater cost. There was evidence around the time that it was running, but maybe something can be fitted in to the Bill to say that you will review it and keep an eye on it. It is primary legislation, and I do not know whether that can be done. That is maybe a question for —

Mrs Guy: I am supportive of getting something on a statutory footing to deal with those kids. There will be challenges when it comes to budget and getting agreement so that people will feel comfortable signing off on it. I am trying to throw some ideas out. I am not saying that this is what we should do; I am just wondering where the flex is when it comes to trying to get something over the line.

Mr Gaffney: I know that this is a different type of legislative intervention than what went before, but your pilot was the food holiday grant, essentially. Look at some of the evidence. Danny spoke about the Trussell Trust reporting a near 50% increase in food parcels in the wake of the previous scheme being cut. I think that we have enough evidence to get on with it, to be honest.

Mrs Guy: In my remarks during the Second Stage debate, I suggested that this could be broadened further with evidence. There are two ways to look at that, but there is clearly a challenge when it comes to budget. Have you considered how you will ultimately measure success rather than just delivery? Will you look at how the scheme contributes to tackling educational underachievement, for example?

Mr Baker: As I say, it is only one piece of the puzzle. It will definitely help children, but we have to do much more. This is not simply me or any of us saying that, when we do this, that is our job done. Far from it; it is only the beginning. We need to tackle poverty if we are going to tackle educational underachievement. There is no question about that.

I do not want to use up your time for questions, but I forgot to make this point earlier and have not spoken about it enough. I know that I only need to get majority support to do this, but I would love to do it with everybody's support. I also want to do it so that we do not miss a holiday period. What has not been talked about enough is the commencement of this. It would destroy me if we were to get this over the line but it was held up and we missed a holiday period. I am thinking about summer 2027. We cannot miss that summer, because that is the big one. I would love it to be done in time for Christmas this year. I know that that is ambitious. Chair, I would happily come here every week and get the officials in every week to pull that off, and I would work until 4.00 am to pull that off. I forgot to mention that point earlier. I think that it will have a massive impact, but, again, it will not have that greater impact without other initiatives.

Mrs Guy: You have decided on the best approach. You have described how the scope has to be narrow for a private Member's Bill, and you know that you are trying to tackle holiday hunger. Did you look at approaches in other jurisdictions? Broadly speaking, there are models in other places that are more of a summer scheme-type model that provide a meal. I suppose that there is a childcare benefit for families in that as well. Did you look at those models, and is there any reason why you felt that this scheme would be the best approach? Are there practical reasons because we have done it before? I want to get a wee sense of that, because a lot of people have suggested that there are a lot of other ways to do it. As I said on the day, this is what is in front of us, however. I want to understand the process that you went through to get here.

Mr Baker: Absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): As brief an answer as possible, Danny.

Mr Baker: There are some great programmes, but a lot of them focus on maybe two to four weeks over the summer. I like this approach a lot because it is over all holiday periods. I have tried to future-proof it so that, should the Minister or any other Minister want to change the holidays, they can do that, but you will get summer, Christmas, Easter and our two midterms. It would be huge to take away that fear for families. Imagine that you have multiple children in the house: that could mean that one week's worth of groceries is covered. In particular, the cash payment means that that money is there and families know that it is there. That would be a big relief for families, rather than just having support for two, four or six weeks. I am not saying that those schemes are not good schemes and do not get good results; I just think that the Bill is the best start, and I am not just saying that because it is our legislation.

Mr Gaffney: Another issue is that, given the cost, capacity, personnel, the availability of settings and all those things, it probably would have become undeliverable in a private Member's Bill.

Mrs Guy: I guess that there would be certain holiday periods, as you describe, where that would not be practical, so there would be periods during which families were left without support.

That is great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mr Martin: Jeez, Danny. You could talk for Ulster. If you were a witness at Committee every week, we would go on until 6.00 pm.

Mrs Guy: Peter, seriously? Do you not remember the other day?

Mr Baker: You were not even meant to speak on Monday.

Mr Martin: I was not even going to speak on the Bill. This is not part of my time, Chair. I have not got a question in yet.

Mrs Guy: Apologies, Chair.

Mr Martin: I did my own work on holiday hunger when I was unemployed after being a spad for a while, and I found it really interesting. One of the things that I looked at, Danny, was how holiday hunger is addressed differently across the UK and Ireland. I am sure that you have done so as well. England does it best. Most of the other regions have nothing to address holiday hunger. That is not a reason not to do it; it is the right thing to do. The English model, as you recognised, is slightly more complex, but it offers supermarket vouchers and stuff like that. Have you considered that?

Mr Baker: Vouchers and cash payments were in my consultation. The briefing note that I sent in has the breakdown of my consultation, to which 1,100 people responded. It was a good consultation for a private Member's Bill. One of the outworkings of it was that it showed that a majority of people favoured a cash payment. As I outlined, vouchers leave people open to stigmatisation, and we want to avoid that. We spoke about the numbers earlier, and we are basing those on there being 100% uptake. Right now, the uptake of free school meals is at 80%. There are issues with that, and stigmatisation is one of those. I hope that the Bill encourages everyone who is entitled to support to take it up. That could be a positive consequence of the Bill.

Mr Martin: I ask that question because, if the Bill goes through, I would like to see some mechanism whereby that money would be spent on food, so that kids would get food from the payments. Jon mentioned in passing the fact that, in Northern Ireland, 22,000 families with kids are known to social services. Those families are struggling with a range of things. I work with various organisations, and a volunteer said that they were going out to a house to deliver a food parcel. They got to the house, and there were two dogs. When they got inside the house, they noticed that the family had — I am getting emotional telling this story — Sky Sports. The person said, "We are delivering food, but those parents —"

Mr Burrows: Hello, I left a wee message last week for the doctor to ring me —.

Mr Martin: Somebody tell him that his mic is on.

Mr Brooks: Jon. Jon.

The Committee Clerk: Jon, go on mute, please.

Mr Martin: I will just keep talking really loudly. I am not so emotional any more.

Essentially, the volunteer described that situation and said to me, "Those parents were not spending the money that they had on food". That is my fear, Danny, for some families. I hope you accept my heart in saying that I would love to see whatever it is — say, £3 — being spent on food. I do not know whether every family will do it, and maybe it is just the best that we can do. I do not know what you think about that. Do you understand what I am saying?

Mr Baker: I do, but we do not know people's circumstances, and things can change. COVID was a really good eye-opener for me. I was in Belfast City Council, and I was also a part of local initiatives. That was when people were shielding, and there was no vaccination at that stage. People needed support because they did not have family support, so it may not have been a financial reason — I am just using COVID as an example — why they were getting a parcel. It was because they had no one to give it to them. Your life can change so quickly. The pandemic was a real eye-opener to me. I came from a trade before I came into politics. A lot of my friends are in trades. They learnt a lot of harsh lessons there. People can fall into poverty very quickly.

Mr Martin: A couple of pay cheques.

Mr Baker: Yes, and you do not know. You hear stories about someone having Sky on, but you do not know what their reason is or what channel that was. Maybe they had a Fire Stick. I do not know, but we cannot go into that realm of judgement. We have to trust families. Parents are probably out there spending every last penny that they have on food, and maybe, if the payment comes in, it will allow them to put it in for electricity, for gas. There are other things at play. Maybe it could pay a bill, you know? The Bill does not ask what people do with the money or what the circumstances are. The vast majority of those 90,000 children will really benefit from it.

Mr Martin: I accept your wider point. There are a few more things that I want to touch on. The cost is really interesting for me because it is something that I am passionate about. We know that next year's Education budget — I had it up here — is going into deficit by about £600 million. This will just be an additional cost. Without getting into the "He said, she said" of it all, do you accept that it is an additional pressure on the Department?

Mr Baker: Yes. I have been clear about that. I know that it will have ramifications for any Minister and the Education Minister in particular. Were the burden to be put on him — and I am saying that it is a burden because that is [Inaudible.]

Mr Martin: I understand.

Mr Baker: If it was a burden, at the end of the day, the Minister can turn around to his colleagues in the Executive and say, "Let us talk. Let us see what we can do. Let us have those conversations". With this private Member's Bill, we are, technically, forcing their hands to do that, if it is the will of all of us.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): In the interests of time, can you let Peter come in? I think that you have a follow-up question, Peter? I am really conscious that we are against the time.

Mr Martin: You are getting some control over him, Chair. I can see that you have to apply that all the time now.

I accept that. Pat had a go at answering this question in the Chamber. The intention is to get food in the mouths of kids over the summer, and that would be a good thing. To be honest, I am not sure that the Bill will quite deliver what the intentions are, but if we can, that is a really good thing. My fear is the size of it. It is big: 0·6% or 0·4%, but as I said, the budget is not really the budget because we are spending 80% to 85% on salaries and SEN. Do you support the Minister, for example, going to Executive colleagues and saying, "This is additional pressure that I have. Can we ring-fence it?"?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): A brief answer.

Mr Baker: I wish that he had had that conversation when I first wrote to him two years ago. As I said, the Bill is presented to use it. It is now the will of every member in here as to what happens to it and what way it finishes. This is the house. If you put in the curtains and pillows and every bit else into it and laid the carpets, that is fine. We will see how it plays out. I will leave you with this: what is the cost of not doing it?

Mr Martin: You are describing what, I suppose, I was saying in the Chamber, Danny. It is not the cost; it is the opportunity cost of not doing something else. If you look at the Education budget, you are saying that if that is 1p more than what they are spending — we can have a difference of opinion: you may say, "Bin the TransformED curriculum. Bin this or bin that to pay for it". That is fine, but we have to accept that —

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I have to ask.

Mr Martin: Yes, yes. By doing this, noble as it is, I would not want to see other areas cut because this is here, if it was extended schools or additional support for special needs kids.

I will leave it there, Chair. Thank you for your additional indulgence.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I understand. It is our first chance to air the issues, and the Committee wanted to make sure that members had the opportunity to do that. We have a big agenda today, and I remind members that we are beyond principles-of-the-Bill territory. We are now into the detail of the Bill that is before us.

Thank you for your evidence.