The Education Committee is welcoming views on the contents of The Education (Holiday Meal Payments) Bill. This is a Private Members Bill from Danny Baker of Sinn Fein. It seeks to restore the ‘Holiday Hunger’ payments which were made to those entitled to Free School Meals during holiday periods. These payments were stopped in 2023. It was one of the key asks of Consortium research into the impact of the Cost of Living Crisis on women for these payments to be urgently reinstated. Therefore, we support the contents of this Bill.
Alongside a range of other Community and Voluntary sector representatives, Siobhán met with Danny Baker, Sinn Fein and Advice NI to discuss the Bill and how we might work to respond to it. Siobhán will be working with Advice NI and others on a template response to the call for evidence and will include Consortium research on this issue in our own response which Siobhán will be working on over the coming weeks.
The details of the Call for Evidence from the Education Committee are available here and the closing date for responses is 15th June 2026.:
https://consult.nia-yourassembly.org.uk/education/call-for-evidence-education-holiday-meal-payments/
You can also support the ‘end holiday hunger’ Bill by emailing your local MLA here: https://actnow.movement-action.org/p/email-mlas-support-the-holiday-hunger-payments-bill and signing the petition here: https://my.actnowni.org/petitions/support-the-holiday-hunger-payments-bill
The Education Committee are holding a session to gather lived experience of these issues on Wednesday 24th June 2026 @ 2:15pm. If you know any women who would be interested in giving evidence to the Committee on the impact of losing the holiday hunger payments and what it would mean to have these reinstated please get in touch with Siobhán as soon as possible.
