Holiday Hunger: Funding

Oral Answers to Questions — Education – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:15 pm on 9 November 2020.

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Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP 3:15, 9 November 2020

T2. Mr Beggs asked the Minister of Education whether Barnett consequentials will be received from the additional £170 million that was recently announced by the Prime Minister to allow local government to support free school meals during holiday periods and tackle the holiday hunger issue and to state whether a commitment exists for ongoing funding in that area in Northern Ireland. (AQT 632/17-22)

Photo of Peter Weir Peter Weir DUP

We would need considerably more than a Barnett consequential, because the number of children, for instance, who qualify for free school meals is of a greater nature than it is across the water. Again, it seemed that this was a case in which the Westminster Government followed behind the devolved Administrations. As the Member is aware, a proposal had been put to the Executive to ensure that, for instance, as a result of the additional week off, initially, that would be covered. Strictly speaking, time outside term time lies outside the legal remit of the Department of Education. However, what we found, across the spectrum of the Executive, is that there has been a considerable willingness and unanimous support — I do not think that I am breaching any Executive confidentiality. During the recent Halloween break, we agreed to support the payment for across both weeks. That position is similar to what was adopted when schools were effectively, more or less, not meeting face to face during the March-to-June period and to the provision agreed by the Executive for the summer period.

We are scoping out what needs to be done in terms of the cost for the Christmas period and beyond. I think that, given what has happened in the past, the Executive will step up to the mark and provide that level of support. One of the things that needs to be scoped out is an additional level of weekly cost as it is likely, as time moves on, that the numbers of those on, for instance, universal credit will, sadly, increase. Therefore, there will probably be a higher cost per week, but I think that there is a strong commitment from the Executive to tackle the issue, and, again, I suspect that we will be ahead of the curve in comparison with Westminster.

Photo of Roy Beggs Roy Beggs UUP

I thank the Minister for his answer. There is considerable research in the UK about holiday hunger programmes providing not only food but constructive physical and educational activity for disadvantaged children, particularly during summer and holiday periods. Does the Minister have any plans to continue to develop and provide such constructive activity to raise the educational attainment of disadvantaged young people in Northern Ireland? In particular, in Carrickfergus, in my East Antrim constituency, the YMCA has been involved in providing such a scheme.

Photo of Peter Weir Peter Weir DUP

A lot of good work has been done on that, particularly by third parties. Tackling the absolute immediate issue will be about the pure issue of holiday hunger and what level of support needs to be provided there. In addition to that, particularly on the academic side, while there has been a focus, for instance, on support for academic catch-up during term time, there was investment, first, in a number of initiatives over the summer this year. Through Youth Services, a range of bespoke interventions have taken place. One area where there has maybe been a little bit of constraint in doing some of the direct help is that there has been a limit on what can be done directly through youth activity during COVID. For instance, while there have been bespoke summer schemes, the ability to have those as wide as they ideally should be has been limited a little bit by COVID. Hopefully, again, we will move to a situation in which we move away from that. However, the work, particularly, of the youth sector in this is critical, and I pay tribute to the hard work that it has done throughout this. Sometimes, it is not as well recognised, perhaps, as what is there in the more formal education system.