Danny Baker
West Belfast · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“I thank the Member for giving way. It is a fundamental right to give girls this choice, rather than allowing them it. Does the Member share my frustration with the DUP's position and that of the Minister? They have created a contradiction here. They are even shutting down the debate today by the Minister's not being here.”
“Does the Member agree that it shows the importance of the Education Committee and what we have done here, given that, clearly, by not even showing up today, the Minister has shown that he was never going to do this? He has sent a very clear message to all those young girls out there that he just does not do equality.”
“On Saturday, I was in Lisburn with a number of my colleagues to take part in a leaflet drop across Lisburn and Lagan Valley to promote our Assembly candidate and councillor Declan Lynch. Declan, his wife and mother and I were all subjected to intimidation and sectarian abuse by a number of loyalists.”
“Every Member of the Assembly must be able to go about their job without threats, intimidation or sectarian abuse. The people responsible for that type of behaviour want to drag us back in time. They want to divide us and want hate and fear to dominate, but they will not win.”
“Our commitment and that of Declan Lynch is to work for everyone in Lagan Valley, and that is what he will do every day. <BR /> <BR />I conclude with this: the silence from political leadership in that community is deafening.”
“The very modest ask from Caleb's cause was for the Minister to prioritise preparatory work towards legislation to support those children. That did not happen. In fact, that campaign was gaslighted. That is shameful. As we head towards summer, when families need a bit of respite, it is a postcode lottery when it comes to direct payments.”
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“We have an opportunity to do something. If you want to say that I have drafted the Bill badly, go ahead. If you think that you could spend the money differently, that is grand; show me. I am going to fight tooth and nail during Committee Stage and the further stages. I am going to fight all of you to get the Bill over the line. I look forward to it. <BR /> <BR />Folks, thank you for today. I will see you in Committee on Wednesday.”
“They are not bad boys and girls; they are just being left behind.”
“Like me, he has been a youth worker. It is no coincidence that, in holiday times, there is trouble at interfaces and trouble in our communities. Folks, that is a cry for help. When the doors of the youth club are opened and pizzas are put on, the youth club is filled. The kids are there, and it is because they are hungry.”
“It is because that is their pathway. We still test children at the ages of 10 and 11. Come on: children are being tutored for that test, yet there are other children sitting there with zero in their belly. How is that a fair system? How are we opening doors and pathways for any child when the system is still like that? <BR /> <BR />Minister, you stand there and say, "Yes, but I would have to make cuts elsewhere". Yes, of course the Bill would have ramifications. I also do not like it when you go straight for the jugular when it comes to the Youth Service. It is not lost on me that funding for the Youth Service will no longer be ring-fenced by the Department. There is now an onus on the Education Authority to provide that service. <BR /> <BR />I did not want to go down this route, but Colin McGrath talked about something that I know well.”
“<BR /> <BR />I mentioned in my opening remarks the young person who was filling his pockets with food. I picked this issue because the community and voluntary sector and our youth sector are doing all the heavy lifting. It has been said that we will open the doors of more schools. Come on, folks: the community and voluntary sector is doing that, but we are not supporting it. That is what the Bill is about. No child should be filling their pockets during the holiday periods and then going back to school malnourished, but that is what is happening. Those children are then weeks and months behind their peers who are lucky enough, as I say about my own children, not to have to worry about having to do that. An eight-year-old should not have to worry about such things. Why is that so important when it comes to education?”
“As I said, the Bill was mine only until today. After today, it belongs to every Member in here. I would much prefer the Minister to take the Bill off me today and implement it himself. I would shake his hand and walk away. I really would. That would be a good day at the office for me. <BR /> <BR />That is where I will finish. I will not go around the houses on everything. There was a bit of concern around unforeseen consequences. I assure Members that I am aware of every possible outworking of the legislation, and I am working in parallel on them. I am genuinely not worried about there being unforeseen consequences at this stage. I will relieve any concerns that Members have about that. I am over the detail. I have lived and breathed the Bill for the past two years.”
“That is why I said that it is only one piece of the puzzle. Can the Department for Communities come along and propose an amendment to raise the threshold? That would bring with it more cost, but would it not be a good thing to do? We should not be naive about that. I get that it is easy to support motions. I know that this is an ask of everyone, so table amendments to the Bill. I mean that. <BR /> <BR />Simply doing nothing is not good enough. At no stage have I been able to put my hand on my heart and say honestly that there are any good anti-poverty measures in place right now. I do not see them. If Members have a better way in which to spend £20 million, happy days, but, if that is the case, where are their private Members' Bills? Where is the Minister's legislation? Let us debate the issue. I am giving Members something to work off.”
“I agree. Look, as a new Member, everything is a learning curve for me. As the years go on, you learn every single day. I have tried to think of the situation in the future. I believe that the legislation would be needed even if we had universal free school meals in the morning. It will not hit everybody, but it will hit the most disadvantaged. <BR /> <BR />Members talked about evidence today. I met every sector that would meet with me, and all agreed. Every one of them provided evidence. I am sure that we have all been given it, because the reality has been expressed here, time and again, in different motions. The threshold to qualify for free school meals is very low. The scheme is for low-income families. The Bill targets the most disadvantaged. Are there people who will fall just outside its scope? Yes.”
“The policy intent had to be narrow. I could not think of a better place to start to end child poverty. I think that it is a really good, strong Bill. It is not at all poorly drafted. It provides flexibility. If I picked up the Minister correctly when he spoke about money, it sounded as though he was saying that the Education Authority will put up the price of school meals even more in the time ahead for families who are already struggling. If it does that, the Bill will not have been poorly drafted. Rather, it will give more support to those who qualify for it.”
“I took my approach after guidance from the Speaker's Office on what a private Member's Bill had to be in this mandate.”
“You will be glad to know that I will not take too much time. It has been a really good debate covering a lot of areas. At times, I thought that we were having a full Budget debate, with the Minister's very long way of saying no to the Bill. I appreciate what everyone has said. I have been honest from the get-go, since I proposed and carried out my consultation on my private Member's Bill, and did not shy away from anything. I know that it will have implications for the Department of Education. <BR /> <BR />Today, this is my Bill, but only for today. It will now be in the hands of everybody else, and I am not naive about that. We will go into Committee, where anyone can table amendments. Honestly, I will sit and work with anybody to strengthen the Bill and make it better.”
“It sounded like you said that it would be £23·2 million by 2033-34. Is that what you said? That means that it is not the £33 million you were portraying it as earlier.”
“Minister, will you please give me some indication of how you came to that figure? There is a difference of £10 million between it and my figure, and I can explain how my figures line up.”
“Where is the Member's private Member's Bill to address this?”
“While you are going through that, I have a wee quote from you. You had a dig at the Minister the last time that this was debated:”
“You made an interesting point. I call that a fugazi. What you did there was interesting. Officials come in and do the exact same thing at our Committee. On 10 December, a senior official came in and used that sort of language: "Of the overall budget, it is only 0·4%" or whatever they said — "It is a small proportion". They were talking about the overall budget when it comes to TransformED. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say that we have disposable money and only take the percentage off that. If officials and senior officials are going to come to the Committee and play that game in front of MLAs, come on.”
“I suppose that we could make the point that it is 0·6% of the overall Education budget. Working it out quickly, TransformED is 0·36% of the budget in its first year, and, in the year after that, it will be something similar to 0·6%. We can play the game of saying that what you spend on is down to priorities; it is about what you want to do with it. That is what I mean, and I make no bones about it: we are in here to make difficult decisions, and that is what this will be.”
“What I know is that this is the best example of a narrow policy that I can introduce by way of legislation. The Bill would help 90,000 children, and that is the best place for us to start.”
“Thank you. Again, the Bill is only one piece of the puzzle. As I have said many times, it does not go far enough, so it is the least that the Executive could do. <BR /> <BR />When it comes to amendments, I need to remind the House that 11 amendments that were tabled to a piece of legislation that went through the Education Committee previously were not accepted by the Speaker. We were given guidelines for Members' Bills that stated that they were to be narrow in their policy intent. We have already heard today about people just missing thresholds — 100% — but if we were to start to get into that, would we be widening the Bills scope? I am up for having conversations with everyone, but I have no idea whether the Speaker will accept any proposed amendments.”
“I am very conscious of that issue. I am meeting officials tomorrow. Based on my research and the work that I have done, I do not believe that a disregard would be needed for a wide variety of people. I think that, if that were the case, the Minister would work with us at pace, if that were the will of the House anyway, but I am meeting officials tomorrow.”
“It is the right of any Member to introduce legislation. In recent times, your party tabled a motion calling for the payments to be reinstated. As I said earlier, it is easy to say yes to a motion. I introduced the Bill, and I know that it is difficult for everyone to make a decision on it, but that is what we are here to do. I am not shying away from the fact that the Bill would have ramifications. I know that, but I think that this is the right thing for us to do, so we should do it. There is no point in tabling motions if you are then not willing to have the drive to introduce primary legislation.”
“That is very much the reason why I say that the Bill is only one piece of a wider puzzle. The threshold is a piece of the puzzle. Universal free school meals are a piece of that puzzle. There are pieces of the puzzle in the Department of Health, the Department for Communities and across the board, but my private Member's Bill is about the Department of Education. I am not shying away from that.”
“Thank you, Nick, for giving way. I suppose that I need to point out that the guidance that we have been given by the Speaker is that, when we bring our Members' Bills forward, our policy intent has to be narrow. I would love to have written much wider legislation, but I am not the Minister and do not sit on the Executive. If it is too wide-reaching, you will get nothing done.”
“Thank you for giving way again. I have been very clear from the outset that I think that this is the very least that the Education Department should be doing. I think that other Departments should be doing more, and I would also like to see more private Member's Bills coming forward to deal with child poverty.”
“For example, TransformEd is costing tens of millions of pounds, yet his senior officials will say that that is a small proportion —”
“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. <BR /> <BR />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.”
“You either stand with me and help to deliver this important piece of legislation, or you do not. Supporting a motion is very easy, but we are elected to make difficult decisions. For my part, this is a very easy decision. I may not convince everyone in the House, but I only need a majority. Your vote matters to all the children in your communities. What is the cost of not supporting it? I look forward to the debate.”
“The Bill is projected to cost, on average, £21 million a year over the next 10 years, based on 100% uptake. The present uptake is in and around 80%, so, if it stays that way, the Bill will technically not cost that amount. However, I hope that the payments will encourage more to take up free school meals. <BR /> <BR />While £21 million sounds like a lot, in reality, it is around 0·6% of the Education budget. That is a very small proportion of the Education budget. Are we underfunded by the British Government? Yes, we are, but Ministers have their own budgets and priorities. In my view, budgets must be targeted towards those who need the most support. That is why my Bill is in front of all of you today. The time for talking about holiday hunger is over.”
“In my child's school, 50% of children receive free school meals, and that is the case in many schools, be they in Foyle or in West Belfast on the Falls Road or the Shankill. I want to see the Assembly taking forward other initiatives to end child poverty. One example of that could be universal free school meals. The recent rise in the cost of school meals is having a detrimental impact on families across the North. We have heard that at the Education Committee and in all our offices. <BR /> <BR />Of course, any interventions and legislation that are aimed at tackling child poverty will have a cost. I am not shying away from that, but I ask all of you this: what is the case for not doing it? Will the Bill have ramifications for the Minister and his priorities? Yes, it will.”
“The Bill will play a role in raising our most disadvantaged children's educational attainment. That is what I mean. I go back to that story about the wee child who was the same age as my youngest. How can we expect that child to go into school to prepare for a transfer test and go up against children who are being tutored for that test? It is just not a fair system. The system is broken, and we have to play our role, alongside our community and voluntary sector, teachers and school leaders. That is why the Education Department has a huge role to play in ending child poverty. In my view, it is the very least that it can do. <BR /> <BR />As I said, the Bill is only one piece of the puzzle. The cost-of-living crisis is crippling families. The Bill targets the most disadvantaged in our communities.”
“While we were able to identify that family and get more support to them, that only happened by pure chance because that scheme was running. I want that story to stick in people's minds today because I know that a raft of statistics will be pushed out. Those will just be numbers on a piece of paper, but it is about making a real-life impact, and we have a chance to do so today. It is about taking a step forward to help 90,000 children right across the North and all our communities. That is why it matters. <BR /> <BR />Children who live in poverty experience poorer physical and mental health, lower educational attainment and reduced lifetime opportunities. Those are facts. The Bill will help improve children's concentration levels, because they will come to school ready to learn, not hungry.”
“However, it was only possible because people volunteered and people like me were there to support it — the funding is not always there. <BR /> <BR />Something became clear very early on in the project about a number of children, but one child in particular sticks in my mind, because he was the same age as my youngest. He was filling his wee pockets with food. Why was he filling his wee pockets with food? There was not enough food at home over the summer, and he had an older sister. The older sister was a teenager, so she was not going to come to the wee camp that we were running. It is a sad indictment of society that a child of that age had to really think about food security. That wee child had all the worries in the world. My child did not and does not. That really should not be the case.”
“The reality in our schools is that teachers run breakfast clubs, wash uniforms and buy food out of their own pockets, but neither they nor our community and voluntary sector and youth clubs, which do a lot of heavy lifting in our communities, can fight child poverty alone. I have spoken about this before: I have been involved in youth work for a number of years. The Lagmore Youth Project in my constituency ran a programme a number of years ago, which was about ending holiday hunger, although the children did not know that. We had the use of a park, thanks to Belfast City Council, and the scheme was supported through different funding mechanisms. I even brought my children to it, because it was so much fun to engage with and be part of.”
“<BR /> <BR />The debate is not new to the Chamber. Holiday hunger payments were in place during COVID but were stopped because they could be cut. That is what I am looking to change. Since I have been an MLA, there have been a number of debates on motions calling for the payments to be reinstated. The motions all passed without a Division. Evidence suggests that some children can be weeks or months behind their classmates when they return to school after the holidays. Why is that the case? It is because they are hungry and malnourished. The links between deprivation and underachievement are well known. Fifteen per cent of children here live in absolute poverty, with one in three children affected by a lack of food. We must ask this question of the Minister: how can children learn when they are hungry?”
“It would cover the cost of what a parent would have to pay for a school meal at this time. I am happy to work with everyone in the Chamber to strengthen the Bill if they feel that that is necessary. If the Minister would like to have even more input, I am happy to work with him. In my previous contribution in the Chamber, I said that I would draw a line in the sand and work tirelessly with everyone here to deliver for those who need it most. I will say this, however: if Members stand up today and say that the Bill is poorly drafted or rushed or that it does not solve poverty, they will be taking a negative and cowardly approach. Today, Members of the Assembly have an opportunity to work together to play a role in ending child poverty. Will the Bill alone end child poverty? No, it will not, but it is one piece of a wider puzzle.”
“I start by thanking the Speaker's Office and the Bill Office for all the support that they have given me over the past two years to get the Bill to this stage. I could not have done it without the help of Trevor and Barbara in particular, and Frank and Stephanie were absolutely brilliant. Their expertise has been second to none, especially for me as a new MLA. Thanks very much. <BR /> <BR />As I said, the Bill has been two years in the making. I wish that I did not have to bring such legislation to the House. I would have much preferred the Minister of Education to have reinstated the holiday meal payments when we came back to the Assembly and he took office. The Bill would amend the Education and Libraries Order 1986. Its policy intent is clear: it aims to support 90,000 children who are entitled to free school meals.”
“Go raibh maith agat, a Phríomh-Leas-Cheann Comhairle.”
“<BR /> <BR />Let us do a U-turn on Caleb's cause. Let us make sure that funding goes into the Youth Service. Danny Donnelly made a big point, which was that the Youth Service are under attack, because the Minister has not made it one of the Education Authority's priorities. It is only a small part of the budget, which goes to organisations such as Kids Together and Sólás. Those families were on the phone to me last night, saying, "Do you know who will be the first ones to lose out this year, next year or the year after? It will be our children". You should give more, not less. If you want to have a budget, let us agree the three-year Budget. When you get your budget, prioritise it for children who need it the most. I will stand beside you and support you on that, Minister.”
“You cannot stand here, take credit, claim praise and get a pat on the back every time that you do something good but, when something goes badly, lay it at the Executive's door. People see right through that. They see through all your social media posts. They see the gaslighting. They do not need it. They want us all to work together. <BR /> <BR />Can we hit the reset button now and work for the next year? Absolutely. I am up for it. I will stay here until 4.00 am every day, if doing so will mean that legislation goes through that supports those children. Let us not keep calling them vulnerable children: it is the system that makes them vulnerable — the system that you all have authority over. Let us stop pointing fingers and start working. Let us do that today. I say that to every Member. I am up for it.”
“<BR /> <BR />To the Health Minister, I say this: not too long ago, you used the Chamber to say that there was no time to legislate in response to Alma White and Caleb's cause. I do not want to single you out too much today, but you tried to do that. It was pointed out to you that that was not the case, but what have you done since then? Alma deserves an apology. You need to work harder to introduce that legislation. The next piece of the puzzle comes from Health. Do not stand here and put it at the First Minister and deputy First Minister's door. It is not their responsibility. To every Minister, I say: let us not gaslight people. You all have your own budgets and priorities.”
“Where was the chief executive of the Education Authority? He was in the royal box at Wimbledon. If the issue had been about mainstream children, I can tell you that the Minister and the chief executive would certainly not have been on those trips: absolutely not. They would not have been. <BR /> <BR />So why are we in this situation, with a U-turn being done? You want to point the finger across the Chamber, but you would not even take an intervention from these Benches. You do not show the respect to be held to account by Members on these Benches for those who gave us a mandate in our communities. Children with additional needs have voices, too. I am here to be their voice, now and always.”
“Remember that it is not provided for all the children, because you took away the little that they had. Not all children get that support. Do you know why they do not get the support? It is because children are not being placed in the right setting. Time and again, I have said that at the Education Committee. It is my job to scrutinise the Minister and hold him to account. I have said that, if a child gets a golden ticket to a special school, they get more support. Every year, there are children who are not being placed in the right setting. <BR /> <BR />I remind the House that, last year, around June — we were close to recess again — we had schools closing, and hundreds of children with additional needs had not been placed. Where was our Education Minister? He was in Florida, championing TransformED.”
“We are in this position not because of the Executive but because two Ministers could not pick up the goddamn phone to call each other. No excuses, no deflection: that is exactly what it was. <BR /> <BR />Families are here today watching, and they saw what you did to them last week. You knew about it. Let us not pretend that it is the Executive or the Finance Minister's fault. We know whose fault it was. You did not pick up the phone to talk to each other. You have to take responsibility for that. You cannot say through gritted teeth that it is regrettable and give a half-hearted apology. You need to wholeheartedly apologise to those families and make sure that the summer provision happens. In your speeches, you said, "We will do everything that we can to make sure that it happens". No: it has to happen.”
“Maybe you will give up on spending millions upon millions of pounds on TransformED. Maybe you will do that.”
“Before you go on to pass the buck to the Finance Minister, do you not realise that you are completely tone deaf in everything that you have said? Absolutely tone deaf.”
“I thank the Minister for her answer. While a reduction in electricity bills is welcome, we know that much more is needed. The misinformation that was peddled by many in the Chamber was not helpful. Will the Minister provide further detail on the efforts that are being made to get the British Government to provide more funding to help struggling families with energy costs?”
“To reassure parents, pupils and staff across our education system, can the Minister categorically confirm that he has never been subject to any investigation, formal or informal, in relation to allegations of bullying within his Department?”
“Will the Minister accept that the holistic approach that he is talking about does not exist and that, with some of the specialist provision that we have, there could be children from P1 in a classroom with children from P6 and P7? Surely that is not fair and is not the right place for all those children.”
“We have a Minister who cherry-picks his evidence to suit his reform agenda.”
“Going after the low-hanging fruit, which are transport and classroom assistants, looks to me like a cost-cutting exercise.”