Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Friday 13th March 2020
(4 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
On 9 January, I was lucky enough to be drawn No. 1 in the ballot—the first private Member’s Bill of this parliamentary Session. I will admit that at first I was not aware of the significance of that, until the avalanche of emails started to arrive, as did the meeting requests, the demands from the press and, of course, a mighty big lobby for very worthy causes. It gives me a real opportunity as a Labour MP to change the law—something of a rarity in recent years. Although the date of the Second Reading of the Bill is Friday the 13th, which may be unlucky for some, I am hoping that for thousands of hard-pressed families up and down our country, this day will be a milestone on the way to helping those in our schools and our constituencies.
My Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill gives MPs from across the Chamber the chance to step up and do the right thing for our constituents. It is a genuine opportunity to put words into action, to change the law and to make school uniforms more affordable for families struggling with often very high and prohibitive costs. Today is an opportunity to help children such as Emily who, rather than facing the indignity of her classmates knowing that her family did not have the money to replace lost PE uniform, asked her mum to write a sick note saying that she was injured. Today, Members across the House have the opportunity to help children such as Callum, who was put in detention because his parents did not have the cash to replace his blazer, which no longer fitted him because of a growth spurt.
As is often the case with yah-boo politics and spin in the media, the intentions of legislation can get lost in the narrative. I assure Members that the Bill is not anti-school uniform. The Bill is not a gateway to some slippery slope that paves the way to the abolition of school uniforms—far from it. As a teenager who went to a school in the ’80s that did not have a uniform, I can vouch from experience that that was not a good thing. It highlighted the haves and the have-nots and the fashions of the day.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this important measure forward. Does he agree that a well-structured uniform policy can work out significantly cheaper for parents than a non-uniform policy?
Mike Amesbury
I do; I concur completely with the hon. Gentleman. When I was at school and people did not have a uniform—as I said, it highlighted the haves and the have-nots—the fashions of the day were really bad, particularly if someone had a highlighted mullet or, in some cases, Day-Glo leg warmers.
I believe, as does the Minister, that school uniforms are a good thing if they are affordable and inclusive. They are one of the ways that schools can poverty-proof the school day. They make children equal and take away the pressures to have to wear the latest fashionable and often very expensive branded clothes and shoes. Yet, too many schools needlessly apply high prices to a multitude of branded items of uniform, including jumpers, blazers, ties, hats, PE bags, coats and even drama socks.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the issue is also the quality of the uniform? I speak from experience as the mother of two teenagers. One attends a girls’ comprehensive just down the road. I bought her blazer when she was going into year 7. She is now in year 11 and about to leave the statutory part of school and she is still in that blazer. It has been excellent quality.
My son, who is in year 9, is now on his fourth blazer because the quality has not been the same. He is in a different school. I absolutely support this Bill, but it must be about quality and ensuring that parents do not have to keep buying uniform. Obviously, children have growth spurts, but the quality of the uniform should be as good as we would expect.
Mike Amesbury
I do not disagree about quality, but we should also think about choice and affordability, and that is the key thing that this Bill addresses.
One parent wrote to me about a particular school that demands a different uniform for each house group. The march towards “if a child wears it, brand it with an embroidered logo” must end, to drive down costs and make uniforms genuinely inclusive.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I am delighted to sponsor the Bill. The hon. Gentleman mentions branding. Will he confirm that it is not his intention to stop all branding on school uniforms? It is quite appropriate for schools to require a badge on the blazer to promote the identity of the school and pride in the school, and he is not trying to restrict the ability of a school properly to brand its uniform.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Gentleman for sponsoring the Bill. I can confirm that it is not anti-branding. As we go through proceedings on the Bill, things will become clear. I thank the hon. Gentleman for the intervention.
The Bill also paves the way to extending choice and stimulating competition in the local retail market to bring down costs for many hard-pressed families—a point well made by the Competition and Markets Authority back in 2015, when it reminded school heads and governors to avoid making their uniforms available only from a single specialist retailer, which undermines competition and the equalising properties of school uniforms. Many parents are left unable to afford the right uniforms and have got into debt. There is also an effect on children. Wearing the wrong school uniform can lead to a child being bullied, left out or even excluded from school, which of course impacts on their education. The Children’s Society estimates that 500,000 children were sent home for wearing the wrong clothes—something I have had confirmed by many of my constituents.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Sometimes people are sent home for really petty things like the wrong colour of socks. I know of a case in which a badge was cut out and put on a black jumper, but that still did not conform with the requirement for what was supposed to be the appropriate jumper.
Mike Amesbury
I agree with my hon. Friend; this is just simply sad and unacceptable. Children should never lose out on education because of the family’s financial situation. Research released and updated today by the Children’s Society, which has been working very closely with me on the Bill, found that parents spend around £337 per year on school uniforms for each secondary school child and as much as £315 a year for a primary school child.
Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
It would be remiss of me not to mention research that I have seen from the Schoolwear Association, which says that the average per year is £101.19, rather than the figure the hon. Gentleman cites. Is he aware of that research?
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have met the Schoolwear Association, which shared that research with me. The research I am referring to is from 1,000 parents who talked about the real costs of uniforms. The hon. Gentleman is right to cite some very good retailers and manufacturers out there that are providing good-quality manufactured goods. This Bill is not about penalising them—far from it.
Kevin Hollinrake
Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) about the cost of uniform, the £340 in the research is not just for the uniform. It is also for shoes, bags and other things. The cost of the branded items, according to the research, was only £100 and they normally last for two years, so the actual cost of the branded items is more like £50 a year. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that point?
Mike Amesbury
The cost, of course, varies and the uniform is the uniform. If a school says a cap, a coat, a bag, a tie—all branded—are needed, some children will definitely feel left out if their parents do not buy those things, and families will struggle. It is a story I have heard numerous times from my constituents, and I know it is a national issue. Members across the Chamber will know of stories of hard-pressed families in their local communities. One of the most concerning things that the researchers found—I am sure we have heard these stories across this Chamber—was that too many parents choose a school based on the cost of the uniform. The Children’s Society has estimated that this has affected 500,000 children, and I hope we can all agree that parents should never be put in that position.
Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for introducing this important Bill. Dozens of constituents have told me how the high price of uniforms leads parents to cut back on food, how kids get detention for not having the right items and how that leads to feelings of shame and embarrassment. Does my hon. Friend agree that in the sixth richest country in the world, parents should not have to cut back on basics to meet the needs of uniforms for their kids?
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
Can we just be clear that this Bill will not affect the ability of schools to enforce school uniform policy?
Mike Amesbury
That is not the intention of the Bill.
I am not the first MP to campaign on this issue, and I must give credit to the sponsors of the Bill from across the Chamber. I also give a nod to the former MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field and, indeed my hon. Friend the current Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), who is campaigning alongside me. I also want to give a nod to the former MP for Peterborough, Lisa Forbes. In her brief time in Parliament, she was a champion of this issue, while highlighting the unfair demise of the school uniform grant—a fact recognised by our shadow Secretary of State for Education, my good friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who continues to press the Government every step of the way.
This Bill is not about the school uniform grant or extending the provision for projects such as breakfast clubs. It is part of our legislative landscape and should not be viewed in isolation to those campaigns. Alongside others in this House, I will continue to press the Government on these matters.
My Bill will require the Secretary of State for Education to produce new guidance that would make it a legal requirement for schools and their governing bodies to make affordability the top priority when setting uniform policies. In 2013, the Department for Education produced good non-statutory guidance, but there lies the problem. While some schools progressively responded to it, others have unfortunately chosen to ignore it. This Bill gives teeth to those good intentions.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his choice of this issue and the progress he has made with it. Does he agree that it would be very helpful if the guidance that he is arguing for included a cap on the cost of the uniform specified within the guidance?
Mike Amesbury
That is not the intention of this Bill. I am sure that some of this will be explored in Committee stage, if the Bill gets there.
The Bill also intends to break down monopolies with single suppliers, which, at times, is based on a historical nudge and wink. Fair and transparent tendering and increased competition will help to drive down prices for hard-pressed families, while rewarding good retailers and manufacturers.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
I just want to take a step back for a minute. What does the hon. Gentleman think about the inclusion of PE kits, DT kits and things such as that? Much of the time, what a school specifies to parents is not just about the blazer, the shirt and the shoes, but about the other things as well. How does he think that that could be dealt with in this Bill, or does he think that we need to go wider still? May I also commend him for bringing this absolutely fantastic initiative before the House today?
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and indeed for his support. This Bill does cover the broad scope, as did the 2013 guidelines, so yes to his question.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he accept that one aspect of the cost of school uniforms is the value added tax, which is imposed on secondary school uniforms in particular? Does he agree that, now we are leaving the European Union, it is time for the Government to put their avowed intent into practice by removing VAT on school uniforms?
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Member for that question. I cannot quite believe this, but I am actually going to agree with him. As a remainer, yes, I really think that people should take control of this issue; and, yes, this is an opportunity which, of course, the manufacturers and retailers have lobbied for over a number of years. However, although I agree wholeheartedly that that should be an opportunity, it is beyond the scope of this Bill.
The requirement by some schools for a branded logo on everything needs to be curtailed, to allow parents the choice of where to buy more items of their uniforms from a wide range of competitive retailers, including from supermarkets and low-cost retailers. I am not against schools having their own identity, far from it, but why not limit the number of branded items to a maximum of two, or have a badge that can be sewn on to a generic shirt or blazer? This Bill is about being fair while being smart, and making a real difference to families who are struggling.
The past three Governments have publicly stated that they intend to legislate on this matter—most recently in 2019, prior to the general election, when the Secretary of State responded positively to the Sunday People campaign—but legislation has been noticeable by its absence in the most recent Queen’s Speech, and in every other one since 2015. After a number of meetings over the past few weeks, I have gained an encouraging amount of cross-party support, including from the Minister and his team, and I sincerely thank them for that.
In conclusion, this Bill is constructed in such a way that it will allow for a swift, effective passage through Parliament, and it has Government support. I look forward to reassurance from the Minister on how parents and schools will be engaged on the content of the guidance as part of this process. Most importantly, today, parliamentarians can help many families in their own constituencies and beyond by getting this done. They should do the right thing by making sure that school uniforms are affordable for all.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on introducing this Bill. Like many hon. Members, I have received a considerable number of emails from constituents concerned about the unacceptably high cost of uniforms. It is perhaps unfortunate that many of these were part of a concerted mass email campaign that was somewhat sensationalist and inaccurate in nature, and did not in fact consider the specific situation in my constituency, let alone at individual schools in the Aylesbury area. That said, let me be very clear that I entirely support the proposal in the Bill that the Secretary of State should issue statutory guidance on the costs aspects of school uniforms.
It is vital that children should be able to attend school to focus on improving their life chances and not to experience any form of bullying, harassment or stress because of the clothes that they wear. In fact, the principle of a school uniform can be a great leveller.
It enables children to form a joint identity, a common bond, in much the way that fans of a football team enjoy wearing replica kits to matches. Many children enjoy wearing their uniform, too. Only yesterday, I spent time with pupils from two primary schools in my constituency—William Harding School and St Edward’s Junior School—visiting the Houses of Parliament. They told me that wearing uniform stops children being judged, and that it is easier to afford than many other clothes. They liked the way that a uniform helped to form a common bond and, ever wise as young children are, they pointed out to me that it would help to identify them if they got lost during their tour of the House, which did make me wonder whether we new MPs might have benefited from a uniform in our first few weeks here.
The advantages and benefits of school uniforms do not, however, mean that head teachers or governing bodies should be able to use them as a covert means to restrict admission. To insist on one particular supplier with unnecessarily high costs is simply not acceptable. Schools must be able to justify their uniform policies. The fact that this Bill puts guidance of cost of uniforms on a statutory basis is for the good. It is entirely in line with the Government’s commitments, and I commend the hon. Member for introducing it.
The main point that I want to make today is that many suppliers of school uniforms are responsible businesses. Indeed, a competitively priced school uniform can be considerably cheaper than buying ordinary clothes, especially those from famous fashion or sports brands. I speak from personal experience, which is similar to that of the hon. Member. My own school in the ‘80s did not have a formal uniform, and the result was often close to a catwalk competition—a competition that I never won.
In my own constituency, the company Print Lab supplies 22 schools. Its secondary school branded uniform consists of blazer, jumper, tie, PE top, outdoor PE top, shorts and socks, for which the total cost is £107.50, and typically lasts for between one and two years. The primary branded uniform of four sweatshirts or cardigans, four polo shirts, the PE equipment and the bags costs £105.50. That works out at about 55p per day, so it is possible to do it at a competitive price.
That company is an example of the entrepreneurial spirit that we need to foster in our country. It was founded by Ian Goodchild in his mum’s garage on Bedgrove in Aylesbury in 2012 and has grown over the past seven years so that it now employs up to 11 people at peak times. That company helps out the schools that it supplies to, sometimes by providing kit for sports teams and sometimes by providing free uniform for the least well-off. What is more, it is a firm that welcomes competition. Indeed, it outsells both Marks & Spencer and John Lewis at the schools where they are also approved suppliers.
In short, it is a British small business that is providing a competitively priced product, employing local people and helping the community.
There are many other such firms around the country, so let us use this Bill to recognise their contribution to the economy and to our schools. Let these firms set the example of how uniforms can bring real benefits to schools, but let this Bill also serve to stop schools insisting on a particular supplier and uniforms at inflated prices that provide a barrier to any pupil, and to demonstrate to the unscrupulous, the greedy and the irresponsible that there is no place for them in our education system.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on bringing forward this Bill.
I grew up in a family shop that also sold school uniforms for local schools in Hounslow. Interestingly, I remember how as a child the relationship that my parents had with other parents was important as was the relationship that they had with the local schools.
This Bill requires the Government to make new statutory guidance for all schools on the costs aspect of school uniforms, and it is right to ensure that schools give priority to the consideration of cost and affordability when setting and implementing school uniform policy. The Bill is rightly pro-uniform, because uniform acts as an equaliser between pupils, and many charities also support the campaign.
In preparing for the debate, I conducted a short survey of my schools, local suppliers and parents. I am also grateful to Prashant at School Bells, a local company providing uniforms for many local schools, for his input.
The Bill seeks to make school uniforms more affordable for parents, and I thank the Children’s Society for its work, although its research on costs is worrying. It is also important to note that costs show great variation across the country. The schools I consulted suggested that the cost of their uniforms was considerably lower than the average, but an average is an average, and it shows high rates being charged across the country. We have to have a much more level playing field.
Schools sometimes foot the bill for school uniforms. A few years ago, I undertook some research covered by The Guardian. Schools were hiding the fact that parents could not afford the school uniform and—from the experience of shops in my constituency—telling the supplier to cover the cost for them, allowing the parents to have the uniforms with the school paying later. In recent years, that has got worse, as family incomes have been squeezed. That is another example of the hidden costs and price of austerity.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend aware of the Children’s Society research that has just been published? It shows that one in five families on lower incomes are struggling to pay for school uniforms. Given that the average cost is about £300 a year, that means they are cutting back on other things—[Interruption.] According to the research.
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I, too, wanted to look at the detail of the costs, so when I did the research in my local schools, I asked about the individual items included. The costs were considerably lower than the full average coming through the Children’s Society, but I am sure that as the debate goes on, the details of how that was calculated will be looked at closely. The point my hon. Friend makes, however, about one in five families struggling, is important. There is also variation across the country. We cannot allow that to be hidden.
Local authorities are another part of the picture. Sometimes they help in cases of hardship, but in Hounslow the grant has been cut from £120 to £60, which is not enough to cover the whole cost of a school uniform, even where it is cheaper. That is another example of the impact of austerity and its effect on children in our society collectively. The Bill will place a duty on the Secretary of State, as we have discussed.
In Feltham and Heston, almost 5,000 households depend on universal credit and have child dependants, with about 66% of them being lone parents. It is not surprising, therefore, when we look at the economics being dealt with by families, that thousands of parents are struggling to make ends meet. Anything we can do to reduce the costs of purchasing school uniforms for their children will be a positive step. For any parent to have to cut back on food or other basic essentials in order to afford school uniform—it happens at particular times of the year—is completely unacceptable.
I welcome the Bill. I look forward to the consultation on how to implement the guidance to get the long-term answer to this, with the input of schools, parents and providers.
Over the past few weeks, I have been contacted by many constituents. At first glance, the Bill seems uncontroversial, asking the important question of how we move forward. I want to make a few points for consideration on that. The first is about the quality and durability of school uniforms. That has to be considered because of the way uniforms might be supplied. None of us wants to see a situation in which school uniforms are produced cheaply, imported and sold in local supermarkets. We want to see a different way, in which durability and quality are also considered, with guidance on that as well.
Secondly, the single supplier arrangements have been much discussed. The Bill does not rule those out, but understanding in more detail whether schools should be allowed to have single suppliers is important. The analysis is mixed on the use of single supplier contracts and whether they drive up prices for parents. Some analysis and examples show that the contracts can add value, as long as robust tendering processes are in place. A number of the schools that came back to me have single supplier relationships which, when they run well, can provide better for families because they ensure better year-round availability of products for all. Single suppliers also tend to overstock, allowing for tailored affordability and other relationships with the school in the interests of parents.
Bim Afolami
Stevensons, a retailer based in Harpenden, the Hertfordshire area and elsewhere, does precisely what the hon. Lady is talking about, often through single supplier contracts. Last year, it also gave £30,000-worth of uniform to disadvantaged parents. Is that not the sort of thing that the Government should also be championing?
Seema Malhotra
What is important is that schools’ and parents’ voices are heard. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, however, and I will come on to that in my remarks. We do not want unintended consequences: over the course of time, we might end up with less quality and less of a relationship—making school uniforms fit well and such things are all part of the relationship between the school, parents and providers, which can be important.
Thirdly, local suppliers invest heavily in stock, as has been said, and as part of their contract tend to overstock through the year, whereas supermarkets might only have a small amount of stock, prioritising it in the holidays. However, when kids change schools during the school year, for example, the risk is a delay with the school uniform. I have asked schools and suppliers whether they experience delays with uniforms and how quickly a parent can get a new uniform if one is damaged or a child moves school. That flexibility is important, so that parents do not have to wait and children are not told they cannot attend school because they are struggling to get the school uniform they need to be alongside their fellow pupils.
What the supplier relationship can provide is interesting, because we do not want a situation in which children are left unable to replace a damaged or torn uniform. I do not want to see a move towards purchasing uniforms from anonymous supermarkets. A worry—which, interestingly, has come up in other circumstances, such as the coronavirus crisis—is that different providers might have different colours and slight variations in the school uniforms, which signifies where a child has bought the uniform from, and that can let inequality in through the back door.
My fourth point is about community. Buying a school uniform for a child is personal. It might be a big milestone in that child’s life. The relationships between local—often family—businesses and the schools can be important to help and support parents and their children through the big milestones of starting primary and secondary school. Important to those relationships, and where they work well, are the annual review meetings with schools, to ensure that any concerns or issues are raised, that schools and governing bodies have power in those relationships, and that standards are maintained as per the school’s requirements. Standards need to be acceptable and proportionate, which is one of the important things that the Bill will introduce into the debate.
Overall, the Bill is welcome, and guidance on school uniform costs being placed on a statutory footing will be an important contribution to how we deal with the issue in the long term. As the Bill progresses and the guidance is developed, I am sure that the Government will consult as widely as possibly with school uniform suppliers, schools and parents. Research needs to be kept up to date, and school uniforms must be of the quality we want for our children in our local schools, but at a price that they can afford. Affordability and the impact on families is a prime policy consideration.
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)
It is interesting, and in some ways welcome, to have a proposal before the House that attracts cross-party support, but also obliges us to consider it and debate it carefully. The hon. Members for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) have talked in the House about schoolwear costs—the latter quite extensively—as have numerous Conservative Members, and Ministers. Some of my comments, however, will be on other aspects of schoolwear, and approaches other than those that hon. Members suggested in other debates. I want to be unambiguously clear, though, that value is important, and that there are parents and carers for whom the cost of schoolwear is a very serious issue, even when we allow for the costs of a school not having a uniform, and cost pressures of every other kind. I take that issue as seriously for my constituents as I am sure Members in every part of the House do for theirs.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) for her comments. She made very sensible points about the special nature of the sector, and about stock, unintended consequences and quality, which I shall expand on a little. I suppose that one of the benefits of these sorts of debates is the measure of agreement; it allows us to achieve consensus, but also to draw out points that need to be made.
I have brief comments on the nature of the proposal, but will focus more on the pragmatic and practical. Views on school uniform—how traditional or otherwise it should be, and its role in promoting standards in education—vary. On the issue of cost, the schoolwear sector—retail and wholesale—deserves a fair hearing. Marge Simpson once said that she could not afford to shop at a store that had a philosophy. I wonder whether, for some, that feeling extends to schoolwear suppliers. In so far as the sector has a philosophy, I have found it very positive. Much of it relates to value. The Schoolwear Shop in my constituency of Northampton South certainly tries hard to keep costs down, but there are examples that illustrate why guidance must allow for differentiation between absolute cost and value for money. The team at David Luke Ltd of Manchester, for instance, led by Kathryn Shuttleworth and Mark Woolgar, have developed schoolwear that is not only low cost but made from recycled materials. That is a move away from fast fashion and waste, but also enhances the hard-wearing nature of the clothes they sell.
The approach of seeking decent quality, and thus longer-lasting, clothing, as well as interesting and innovative ways of supporting parents on lower incomes, is also taken by Jan Richardson and her team at Total Clothing in Peterborough. I have seen that approach taken by Georgina Bradley at Sussex Uniforms as well. Someone who has to buy three pairs of trousers for £10 each, instead of one pair for £25 that lasts three times as long, is not saving any money.
My encounters with business people in this sector, and messages and information from others, show me that the sector cares about the schools and the parents whom they serve, and understands the price pressures on many of them. The fact that it seeks to resolve those issues through durability and ethical sourcing shows that there is more to value than the sticker price, and that is something to which schools, parents and the Department for Education should have regard. Tendering for sole supply arrangements can keep prices on the cost and value matrix down, and I welcome the place for that idea in the guidance, and believe that it addresses many of hon. Members’ concerns. I very much hope that when the guidance goes back out to consultation, the schoolwear sector, and especially its best exemplars, get a full opportunity to contribute and explain the special business model that the sector requires, which we have heard a little about. I hope we also hear from charities and campaign groups of various kinds.
The need for a balanced assessment is underlined by the hugely detailed, and—I would assert, reverting back to my time in academia—peer reviewable work that the Schoolwear Association has done on the true cost of uniform, which acts as a corrective to work done by others. We have heard that the average basket price for branded garments—uniform and sportswear—for a child starting secondary school is £101.19, and that the cost is £35 to £40 a year thereafter.
We have all been children, and many of us have school-age children; I do. Opinions in the House and the real world will diverge based on personal, family and constituents’ experiences. There are families where someone did not go to a good school that they would have thrived in, because it was thought that they could not afford the uniform. Alternatively, there are families who found having a school with a proper uniform a great social leveller; it gave them freedom from the peer pressure of, “Your jacket’s from the supermarket, but mine’s Gucci.” That relates to the PE point. If requirements are too generic, all those expensive brand labels that the Bill’s promoter, the hon. Member for Weaver Vale, spoke about will return to schools. That makes the case for having lower-cost items that are branded by the school, rather than by Nike, Adidas or someone else at unbelievable cost, which would put pressure on those on low incomes to keep up with the Joneses.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
That brings to mind a childhood memory of my mum telling me that we could not have the Dunlop Green Flash; we would have to get the £3 bargain plimsolls. I dreaded going to school the next morning, and the embarassment of doing PE in those crummy plimsolls. I want to ensure—this is the hon. Gentleman’s thinking, too—that the principle of more affordable PE kit and sportswear is enshrined not just in the Bill, but in the guidance, so that the young people of Ilford South who aspire to be sporting heroes do not have to worry about whether they can afford to be the next Ravi Bopara or Nasser Hussain.
Andrew Lewer
The hon. Gentleman provides a good illustration of how personal experience informs rather than inflames the debate. His point also illustrates the importance of local areas and schools having a measure of control and responsibility. That is not always delivered by an attitude of, “The man in Whitehall knows best.” There is space for guidance—that is the purpose of our discussion today—but guidance and over-prescription in a country the size of ours, with the number of schools we have, would be unwelcome.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the vast majority of schools take a very responsible approach when designating their school uniform? We might be looking at a relatively small number of exceptions when we talk about more expensive uniforms.
Andrew Lewer
What my hon. Friend says is true in the overwhelming majority of cases. It is interesting; I have found from my meetings with larger schoolwear suppliers, and the intermediate businesses that provide wholesale stock of those garments to a local area, that some of them have prevailed on schools to take a more measured and responsible approach. It is a tribute to people in the sector that although they could say, “Yes, you should absolutely have a cerise lining and charge £250,” they have said that they do not think that is a very responsible approach. People may respond, “Oh, the sector would say that, wouldn’t it? It’s just in it to gouge everybody.” That is not, I hope, something that we would necessarily say about other sectors, such as the defence sector or the theatre. This sector, being so close to the people it serves and so embedded in the communities it serves, overall does take its responsibilities particularly seriously.
Nobody suggests that a uniform makes or breaks a school, but if a school is seeking to change and drive up standards—possibly in response to not very satisfactory Ofsted results, or in response to parent pressure to step up their game—a uniform makes the statement that it is on a mission to do that. Also, schools with a much longer tradition of success that they want to keep up encourage pride in their uniform—pride in their brand, and in what they have achieved for the young people that they serve. Uniform has an important role to play there.
I went to a state school with a comprehensive intake, Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School in Ashbourne in Derbyshire. I owe it so much that I mentioned it in my maiden speech. It has a traditional uniform, including right through the sixth form. That is not why it is a good school, but it plays its part.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I also went to Queen Elizabeth’s School, but in Barnet. We had a traditional uniform, and we had houses. There were different uniforms for those in different houses. Does he agree that these sorts of things raise the ethos of a school, and therefore raise aspiration, and deliver better outcomes in the long run?
Andrew Lewer
That is absolutely true. I do not want to play school status bingo, but that does sound very grand because all we had for a house was a little plastic or metal badge—that was it.
Kevin Hollinrake
We had a similar thing: little yellow or green badges that we could stick on our uniform. The guidance illustrates this. A school in Cumbria allowed students to put their house logo on their jumpers, but they were stitched on, so they could be taken off, with the jumper given to a brother or sister, a relative or whatever. Uniform can therefore be branded with a school motto or house logo without it costing parents too much.
Andrew Lewer
It can. I put a big question mark next to this section of my speech in case it instigated a wide range of people’s recollections of various kinds. However, I have been pleased to hear those from Members. I do want to mention Duston School in my constituency, led by the no-nonsense head, Sam Strickland.
An aversion to philosophy and a preference for pragmatism has overall served this country well, in contrast to some others, right back to the glorious revolution of 1688. That aversion is echoed in Lord Palmerston’s statement in Parliament in 1864:
“We cannot go on adding to the statute book ad infinitum.”
Lord Palmerston was not necessarily prescient there, considering the amount of statute that has been passed since. But it in no way detracts from the concerns of Members across the House on a whole range of issues, including this one, not to wonder sometimes whether regulation is always the answer and whether we benefit from being what groups as diverse as The Economist, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Cities and the Institute for Public Policy Research regard as the most centralised state in the western world. That is a question for Government—especially a Conservative Government with a healthy majority—to ponder henceforth.
However, with this legislation, we are where we are. To seek comfort, I ask the Minister to address three matters. First, will the schoolwear sector be fully consulted and have its role respected as guidance goes out for consultation? Secondly, will sole-supplier arrangements be allowed when there has been tendering? Thirdly, will the key consideration be value for money? In tendering, quality of product can be a consideration as a better way often of saving parents money than the pure sticker price for a fast-fashion, not ethically sourced poor product that may wear out quickly.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for using his good fortune in the private Member’s Bill ballot to bring forward this critical Bill, which I am sure is welcomed by parents and carers across the country. Many hon. Friends have mentioned this. I still remember that sense of pride many years ago when I first put on my primary school uniform and that sense of belonging to a team. I was in the red team, which made sure that I would join the Labour party later in life.
I am a parent of two young children. When my eldest daughter started reception in September, I remember the sense of pride when we put on her school uniform, yet in the back of my head I could hear my husband going, “How much did that cost?” School uniforms are expensive for a number of families in Vauxhall and across the country. As parents and carers from disadvantaged and lower-income households struggle, these costs are really high; they are struggling from pay cheque to pay cheque. That is the reality.
We need action on lower costs for school uniforms and to provide flexibility for many families who are struggling to get by. That is why I am pleased to support the Bill, which would give the Government the power to set guidance once and for all about the cost of school uniform for parents and prevent the spiralling costs they are seeing up and down the country. The impact of those costs can be severe, with one in six families having to cut back on basic food essentials and one in eight getting into debt just to pay for school uniforms. That should not be happening. When parents and carers cannot afford these costs, their children also face the brunt of it, as we have heard, with some schools imposing draconian school discipline and some kids actually being sent home. The Children’s Society did a survey and reported the experience of a child who was sent home just for wearing the wrong school uniform. I am therefore glad that the Government are accepting the Bill today, but its failure or success will come from the strength of the guidance issued by the Government. I am therefore happy to see the Minister is here listening to all our contributions.
I urge the Government to use guidance to limit the amount of branded items that are strictly necessary. If a school feels that use of its logo is necessary—I think it does provide a sense of emphasis—and is right, it must be sure that parents and carers can use cost-saving measures such as self-attachment without fear of their child being excluded or reprimanded.
Mike Wood
I think all parents of school-age children have been slightly frustrated by the rate at which their children tend to grow out of school uniforms, long before those uniforms wear out—invariably, children have a growth spurt just after they have been bought a new uniform. Many schools have introduced second-hand uniform shops. Does the hon. Lady think that that should be encouraged and made best practice in all schools?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. As the eldest of three girls, I can guarantee that my mum used to recycle all our school uniforms. To the horror of my immediate sister, when she started secondary school, she had to wear my blazer. That blazer was passed down again when my cousin started at the same school. Those initiatives are excellent to help families who are struggling.
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend has reminded me that I was the fourth of four girls, all at the same school. I did not have a single piece of new school uniform; I had three hand-me-downs.
Florence Eshalomi
Thankfully, I have a son and a daughter, so there will not be any passing down. If I could, I would.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
As the sister of an older brother, I assure my hon. Friend that hand-me-downs happened and I can wear a navy blue jumper as well as any boy.
Florence Eshalomi
That highlights the problem for a number of parents and carers right across the country. If we pass the Bill, its measures will bring costs down significantly for a number of parents and carers across the country. However, even if it passes, the hard reality is that school uniforms will still be an expense that some of our poorest in society fail to afford. While there is support for poor families, it is at the behest of local authorities—which have also seen their budgets cut in the last 10 years—and how much support they can offer.
The proponents of school uniforms argue that they create a level playing field for children from all backgrounds and drive down inequality, but how can that be the case when parents and carers are having to fork out hundreds of pounds to pay for uniforms and when support for poorer families is based on a postcode lottery? The Bill is not to question the rights and wrongs of school uniform—I think we all agree with that—but it gives the Government the potential to create a genuine level playing field for pupils up and down the country and ensure that our children continue to learn.
Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate about guidance on and costs of school uniforms. We have all been through school and had the experience of looking forward to buying school uniform, or our parents buying it. Hon. Members have rightly highlighted how, when we go to the shop to get the blazers and sports kit, it really sets that sense of transition from primary school to secondary school, which is a really important stage in life, for the vast majority who go to schools with these uniforms.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi). I have three brothers so I was in a similar position on hand-me-downs. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), in his speech, made an excellent contribution. The reassurance that the Bill is not about getting rid of school uniforms is so important, because they hold an important place in our society. It is not just the uniform—the tie and the badge—that is important; on sports day and in sporting competition between different schools, they allow people readily to see their team and who they are supporting. Uniform lends itself to that ethos and identity within a school.
It is far cheaper to have a school uniform, because it avoids that competitive catwalk approach. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) highlighted what can happen if a school’s sports kit is not also part of the school uniform; by attempting to reduce the overall cost of the uniform, schools can actually allow other areas of school life to become dominated by cool kit, style and fast fashion. School uniform is important in many different ways.
Perhaps this is a minor point, but children will only appreciate a mufti day at school if they have to wear a school uniform the rest of the time. However, there is a concern that non-uniform days come a little too frequently now and happen for too many different reasons. Perhaps there should be a reduction in such days, because it is now on these occasions that competition over clothing comes out, undermining the value behind having a school uniform.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that schools deciding to have dress-up days can cause additional pressures for families, who have to keep finding different outfits for their children?
Chris Green
That is a very good point. Fortunately, I was at school before it became the fashion to have these themed days—for World Book Day or other occasions—for which parents have to go out and spend money on outfits. I am glad that I missed all that, and having to dress up as Harry Potter or anyone else is not something I would ever have looked forward to when I was at school.
It is quite right that we emphasise the value in good-quality school uniform. This ought not just to be about the cheapest price. A lot of small shops provide good-quality school uniforms. We ought to be aware of the concern that in many towns around the country there might not even be a question of which school uniform the children are wearing, because it will be the cheapest option—from whichever supermarket is in that town. Supermarkets provide a valuable space for affordable clothing, but we need to be careful that they do not push out the small businesses on our high streets by doing so.
It is important for schoolchildren to wear a uniform because they may end up wearing one when they leave school, as people in so many walks of life wear uniforms. Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker himself, and so many others around this Chamber and around Parliament wear a uniform. The police and nurses wear uniforms. Arguably, as is evident on the Benches around me, many male Members of Parliament dress in quite a standard way. Schoolchildren are likely to wear a uniform of one sort or another throughout their working lives, so they may as well get used to it early on.
School visits are one of the most interesting parts of any Member of Parliament’s life, whether that visit is from a secondary or a primary school. We often do the fearsome or dreaded Q&A, where there can be a range of questions—from “What is your favourite colour?”, which I deal with quite well, to “What are the relative merits or demerits of the party leaders?”, which is a far more involved question. It is sometimes good to ask the kids questions as well, and to get them to participate in democracy, especially given the importance of referendums.
In these sessions the children do ask, “Why do we have to wear a school uniform?” and the arguments can be set out as to why it is so important that they do. But I asked the children of St Bartholomew’s Church of England Primary School in Westhoughton to vote on whether their teachers and headteacher should wear a school uniform as well, and that question was agreed to not 52% to 48%, but with unanimity within the classroom. So many schools have school councils now, and I think that teachers should respect the children and democracy; perhaps we should be expanding this Bill. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Weaver Vale wants to seek to expand the remit of his legislation, but maybe we should be asking whether teachers should wear school uniforms as well.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in favour of this Bill, promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), who has truly identified a real issue faced by millions of families across the country. The Bill takes the necessary steps required to alleviate the problem.
The cost of a uniform can vary dramatically across a community and across the country, with the only uniformity being that the relatively cheapest uniform is still extremely expensive. The school uniform serves a wide range of important functions. It provides a uniformity for what young people wear to school, regardless of their family’s financial situation. A young person cannot be made fun of because their family cannot afford the most up-to-date clothes, for example. This uniformity, which was in part designed to help some of the poorest in our society, is in fact now placing an undue cost on families.
In my constituency alone, the cost of a branded blazer is between £31 and £37, a tie is £6.50 and a PE top is £15. The average cost of a secondary school uniform is £340. In its 2020 update, the Children’s Society has announced that this cost is now even higher, with costs rising to £361. Some 43% of parents said that the cost of school uniform alone had affected their families in some way, and one in 10 families reported getting into debt trying to pay for uniform costs. We also need to bear in mind that this is a yearly, and sometimes twice yearly, cost. Some Members in this Chamber may hear “£37 for a blazer” and think, “That’s not too bad”, but as young people grow their uniform often needs replacing yearly and sometimes twice a year, so these figures become an annual cost. This leads to poorer families being unable to replace worn out or outgrown school uniforms, which leads to stigmatisation and bullying, meaning that uniforms are failing to meet their purpose of providing a baseline for all.
I know that we cannot do away with the cost of uniforms altogether, and I welcome the work that Governments have done on this matter previously. The Government’s advisory guidance, for example, does emphasise the importance of cost considerations. However, as we have heard from the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), and my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), who have made good contributions, this guidance is not enough and is seven years out of date. It also lacks the teeth required to make schools lower the cost of uniforms, although I am aware that many schools have schemes to help.
This Bill is so important because it will empower the Government to take the statutory steps necessary to alleviate the financial burden being placed on families across the county. The Government have already pledged to make their guidance statutory, as stated in in the 2015 better markets plan. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale has helpfully drawn up the Bill up for the Government, and I can see no reason why they would wish to oppose it, given that it is in line with their own stated aims and is admirably written. By passing this Bill into law, the Government can take the necessary steps to limit the amount of items that must be branded. It is often this branding that increases the cost of uniforms, as families are forced to purchase from a single provider.
Chris Green
Does the hon. Lady share my concern that reducing the range of branded school uniform items would enable—and perhaps, to some extent, encourage —a pathway for people to have more branded items that are not branded by the school, which would slightly undermine the concerns about bullying and a lack of cohesive identity?
Ms Rimmer
I have heard the hon. Gentleman, but the Bill means that the Government would have to take the necessary steps to limit the amount of school uniform that must be branded.
The Government could also use the powers contained in the Bill to ensure that schools must have a fair and open tendering process at the end of each financial year, which would increase competitiveness and help drive down costs, and the savings could then be passed on to families.
One such family is Paula Hay’s. Paula has four children. Her youngest is 14 and still at school. Over the years the family have struggled to pay for uniforms, especially when the three older boys were all at secondary school at the same time. Paula said:
“Having to buy three sets of everything was expensive and I would have to rely on my parents to help out. If they had not covered the costs of things like shoes and trainers, I am not sure how we would have managed it.”
Paula’s daughter is currently in year 9. At the start of the current school year her school changed its uniform, which meant Paula had to buy everything new again. She said:
“I bought two skirts and a blazer for £89, and then we had to add a tie and a few bits for the PE kits. It was well over £100 on those items. Then there were additional shirts, jumpers and tights—it all adds up. Many of the schools use that same shop, which means you don’t have a choice and have to buy the more expensive items. It’s not fair to those from low-income families.”
This Bill can and will, if utilised effectively by the Government, make a real difference for families like the Hays. That is why I commend the Bill to the House and call on Back Benchers and Front Benchers to support it through all the stages required to make it law.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
May I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for introducing this private Member’s Bill? As a former teacher, I understand the impact that the high cost of school uniforms can have on parents.
I would like to start by stressing the importance of school uniform, of which I am an ardent supporter. I recently visited two of the top-performing schools in my constituency: the first is a brand-new through school, Armfield Academy; and just last week I welcomed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education to St George’s School. The headteachers of both schools explained that the introduction of a zero-tolerance policy on school uniform had had a profound impact on school standards and results. When I spoke to some of the brilliant pupils at those schools, they told me how proud they were to wear their uniform. They said it gives them a sense of belonging and community, and that it helps them get into the correct mindset for learning. It also puts all pupils on a level playing field, where their personality, achievements and attitude make them stand out, not the cost of their clothes.
I also understand the stress that having no school uniform can bring to parents and children. A single non-uniform day a year can be a cause of concern for some. Parents will worry about sending their children to school if they have not bought the latest fashionable brands—a point articulated by the hon. Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) a few moments ago. Bullying can seriously impact children’s development, and many fear what their peers will say on a non-uniform day. A standard uniform can alleviate these worries and allow children to focus on what is important: their education.
Chris Green
No doubt many parents in my hon. Friend’s constituency take a sensible and pragmatic approach to school uniforms, as indeed did my own parents. I had a total of two blazers during my time at secondary school—I remember that on my first day the sleeves went past the tips of my fingers. It is really important that people make sensible, pragmatic choices about school uniform, and that schools support families in need to ensure that they can have the appropriate wear.
Scott Benton
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I am sure that all Members will have heard the phrase, “You’ll grow into it.” I suppose many parents hope that their child will not grow out of it.
As a primary school teacher, it never ceased to amaze me how hard-wearing school uniforms can be, when I would see children knee-slide across the hall at the school disco, or rolling around in the playground. I believe that there should be simplicity and longevity in school uniforms, to make the cost to parents lower than that of personal clothes.
However, the rise of branded school uniforms and the requirement to have a vast number of items, including branded PE kits, separate GCSE clothes and bespoke skirts, is making school uniforms unaffordable for many. I do not believe that parents should have to decide where to send their children to school based on which has the least number of bespoke garments, many of which may never be worn. Branded items can cost multiple times the non-branded equivalent, and using sole suppliers only exacerbates the problem.
Uniform costs can enter hundreds of pounds as children outgrow clothes and shoes. My constituency of Blackpool South unfortunately has some of the most deprived wards in the country. It is known that material deprivation can have a serious impact on school attainment. Despite being a big supporter of the previously mentioned zero-tolerance policy, it is often the children of low-income families who fall foul of the rules, and they can miss out on crucial learning as a result. I hope that this change in legislation will help those parents trying to do the right thing to send their children to school with the necessary tools to succeed.
I welcome the Government’s support for the Bill, and their commitment to levelling up per-pupil funding across the entire country. They have a clear commitment to ensure that all children receive a first-class education, whatever their background and wherever they live. Schools have a responsibility to ensure that the costs to parents are reasonable, and it is right that the Bill will make that statutory.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
I have been inundated with requests from constituents asking me to support this important Bill, so I am delighted to be in the Chamber today, and indeed to be a sponsor of the Bill, which has been introduced by my good friend the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury). I hope that Members on both sides of the House will come together to make a real difference on a matter that affects so many parents and students.
Despite my infancy in this place, I already feel that, with all the rhetorical back-and-forth, the bluster, the hyperbole and so forth, we can sometimes lose track of the real issues that affect the day-to-day lives of our constituents. In our communities across the land, whether they voted blue or red, too many working and non-working parents, and even grandparents, are worried about the cost of school uniforms. I acknowledge that we have heard different views today on the costs of school uniforms, but the Children’s Society, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale pointed out, has put the cost at more than £300 a year, meaning that an estimated 1 million parents have to cut back on food and other essentials to cover the cost.
Although I very much hope that the Bill will proceed today, we must remind ourselves that we are not in the business of gesture politics and warm words, so any new guidance offered to schools must tangibly and materially improve the situation for parents and pupils. I am sure that hon. Members will make similar points—indeed, others already have—but it is important that we get this right while we have the opportunity to do so. Any new guidance must look seriously at monopolisation within the sector. Monopolisation by suppliers is increasing costs, to the extent that it is harming the pockets of parents, and in its very nature it is exclusionary. Schools should comply with the guidance, and the guidance should address the exclusivity arrangements in the sector. I am certain that the best way to ensure that this takes place is to put in place mechanisms to see that the guidance is enforced. Schools should have to demonstrate clearly that a tendering process has been undertaken if using a single supplier, for example, which I am sure can be achieved in ways that need not be very bureaucratic.
When consulting with stakeholders and before introducing new guidance, the Government and the Department for Education must put parents at the heart of the consultation process. Schools must be required to reach out to parents who may not naturally be forthcoming about their concerns at the cost of their child’s school uniform. Assumptions and assertions by school leaders will only take us so far. As with tendering, we should be asking schools to demonstrate clearly that they have attempted to engage with parents, so that we, as political representatives, can continue to get a clear picture of the reality of forking out for uniforms. If done right, that will contribute significantly to guidance that is comprehensive and will universally improve the lot of our children.
To sum up, I believe—as pretty much all in the House do—in the principle of school uniforms. The benefits are many and have been reiterated in this place today. We have a great equaliser in the school uniform. However, we should not be creating inequalities elsewhere. As I said at the start of my speech, let us get on with it, but let us do it right and make a real difference.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on promoting the Bill. I am pleased that the Government are supporting it, and I am happy to do so as well. I was a governor of schools for 10 years before coming into politics, and uniform issues weaved in and out of my time as a governor. Let me start by saying that I am a strong supporter of uniform and the role it can play in building identity and discipline, as well as the role it should play as a leveller for children of all different backgrounds. The Bill is necessary because uniform is not acting as the leveller it should be at the moment, and I want to touch on three aspects.
The first is the financial burden. As we have heard, the £340 figure is widely disputed, and that is the limitation of a survey of a small proportion of parents. On the other hand, some of the very low figures that have been sent my way do not seem to take account of the fact that children often need multiples of the same item. They also do not take account of the growth spurts or the obstructive activities that children can get up to at breaktime and lunchtime, which may mean that further items are needed during the course of the year.
Most studies, including the ones from the Department for Education, seem to indicate that there are parents for whom uniforms are a real financial burden, and who sometimes get into debt and have to give up essentials. Before I came to the Chamber, I received some information from the Competition and Markets Authority—I am sure other Members did as well—which said that this is one of the areas it receives most complaints about, which is an interesting point to note.
It is true that schools and local authorities offer support to families with the cost of uniform, and when I was a governor, we did the same, but as with any support offered to people experiencing poverty, the stigma of applying for it can mean that they do not do so, even when they are eligible. I remember, as a governor, that all the schools I was working with bent over backwards to get children who were eligible for free school meals to claim them, but whatever they did, families were uncomfortable doing so. We therefore need this statutory guidance, to ensure that everybody is getting the support they need.
The second aspect is attendance, which is fundamental to attainment. When I was a charity chief executive, I became familiar with other charities such as School-Home Support, which works on the relationship between schools and families, particularly trying to combat issues of truancy. At the heart of truancy were often issues of uniform—items of uniform that had been lost or that children had grown out of, and sometimes items of uniform that children were embarrassed to wear because they were dirty. Sometimes School-Home Support meant putting that uniform in a washing machine, which the family lacked, and fixing that issue fixed the attendance problem.
At the charity I ran before coming here, we placed young people—mostly those who were eligible for free school meals—in employers, and we often had to buy them the items they needed to feel comfortable in the workplace. Many of those young people now have successful careers in those companies, but if we had not bought them the original item they needed to feel comfortable going on their work placement, they would never have taken up that opportunity.
The third aspect is the way the schoolwear market operates. I believe in competition. I think that higher prices are not usually the result of too much competition, but rather too little competition. I have heard from schoolwear suppliers in my constituency about the issues they face in supplying schools with uniform. They feel that they can sometimes cut the cost to parents by 25%, while maintaining the same quality. Quality is important—it should not be like my occasional eBay purchases where I think I have got a bargain, and two weeks later I have to buy the same item from a more reputable source. Those suppliers feel that they can match the quality, and yet they are kept out because of exclusivity arrangements that schools have reached without going through a proper tendering process.
I have been pleasingly surprised by how many within the schoolwear industry welcome the Bill. They would like to see it enable a level playing field for them to compete on quality and price, so that their business can succeed in the way that I think we would all like them to succeed. I hope that, with these guidelines, we can enable businesses to operate on a level playing field, while protecting families who, for too long, have had to pay too much for uniform.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), on his Bill. As we all know on the Opposition Benches, 10 years of austerity have had a major impact on the most vulnerable and plunged many into precarious financial positions. Liverpool, Riverside has some of the most deprived wards in the country, and many parents do not have the money to feed their kids, particularly during the summer holidays, never mind being able to find hundreds of pounds for branded uniforms. If this Government are serious about levelling up, they need to get this Bill done.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I am delighted to speak in the debate and to co-sponsor the Bill. When my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) asked me to support it, I quickly agreed for a number of reasons. The first is that he is a very decent fellow, and I enjoyed the time we spent as members of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Secondly, I thought it was a very sensible Bill. Thirdly, he told me that the Whips were supporting it, which is always a bit of a help.
The Bill has a simple purpose. It is not about restricting the ability of schools and school governors to set a sensible branding policy for their school. It is about increasing the amount of competition, which it is right that we do. It is great to hear so many Labour Members speaking about the need to create more competition—they are absolutely right that that is what we need to do. We should guard at all costs, at any time, against monopolies, be it private sector monopolies or, even worse, public sector monopolies. When we think about the way we run many different things in this country, we have to try to prevent monopolies. Public sector monopolies are worse because there is nobody to hold them to account. If the Government own a monopoly, who can possibly hold that public sector monopoly to account?
It is right that we support the creation of more competition. Competition is the best way to drive up service and reduce costs, as I know from my own life. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have been in business for most of my life, and I still am. As we look to become more effective and do better in our marketplace, the thing that has made our business more competitive has been when new competition has entered the market and started to put pressure on our business. At that point, we look at our business model, try to reduce costs in order to gain market share, and try to drive up our service. It is fundamentally right that we try to engender more competition in every single marketplace. Competition is not just a dog-eat-dog situation that is about driving other businesses out of business; it is about giving the consumer more choice. That is the fundamental principle about such needs and our ambition to make the consumer market more competitive. That is so absolutely right, and I believe the Bill does that.
We also have to guard—unfortunately, this tends to happen in some instances—against vested interests. For some reason, some schools will use a uniform policy for the wrong rationale. It is sometimes about generating more profit or more revenue for the school’s suppliers. It is absolutely right that this Bill is not about restricting the ability of a school to put in place a sensible uniform policy that allows for branding. It is simply a Bill that means we do a minimum of branding, but can increase competition for the other elements of the uniform.
In the Government guidance, there is a simple example of how certain schools have been able to increase competition and reduce costs for their uniform. One particular school is Caldew School in Cumbria, and it has done that by keeping as many items of uniform as possible generic. Whether it is a simple pair of black trousers or a white shirt, this is about reducing the number of items in the uniform policy that are branded.
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale talked about restricting the number of branded items to two. I think that would probably be an unreasonable restriction. We can see why a school may want more latitude in having various items of clothing with different badges, but there are ways to do that without excess cost to the consumer, particularly by allowing people to buy a badge, rather than a whole blazer.
Florence Eshalomi
On branded items, I remember when my oldest child started school in the September, I thought we were ready, but then I realised I had not sewn the name tags on all the items. I had to spend the next three hours sewing them on each branded item, with the pain of pricking my fingers quite a number of times, hence limiting the number of branded items may be welcomed by many parents.
Kevin Hollinrake
I can see why we may want to reduce the number of branded items, but I guess that has to be done for name tags—for my son, Charlie Hollinrake, I remember my wife sewing them into jumpers, T-shirts and stuff—even in non-branded items, as well as in branded items.
I, too, was a school governor—for six years at our local school. In fact, it was the school I attended myself as a young child, which is a great place to be a governor. There is no doubt that most people can see that having a sensible uniform policy instils pride and identity in young people at their school. It can enhance productivity and create a greater focus, and it is less of a distraction if everybody is dressed in a similar way, they are dressed well, a uniform policy is properly implemented and properly imposed, and standards are high. However, schools can clearly do that without saying that children have to have a particular pair of black trousers. If they let people choose the more generic items—those that do not need to be branded—the greater choice for the consumer will drive down the cost of the uniform.
Interestingly, the Government’s own figures show that the average cost to parents of a uniform, adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was in 2007. It is right that we look at this policy, and that we take forward the guidance and make it statutory, but we should not think that lots of profiteering is going on in this sector. Generally, the costs are fair. On the costs mentioned earlier, the research from the Children’s Society says it is £340 a year, but that includes lots of other things. The research from the Schoolwear Association shows that, for branded elements, it is about £100 for a typical suite of items, which would typically last two years, so the annual cost of branded items is more like £50, which would be a fairer cost. That is not of course to say that some people will not still struggle: for a lot of people, £50 a year is a significant cost, so it is right that we should seek to minimise it. It is right that there should be measures in place to help people on low incomes afford the uniform.
Just outside my constituency, there is a business called NextGen Clothing, which is a member of the Schoolwear Association. I have spoken to those there, and they absolutely support this legislation. They talked about how they provide branded uniform items for schools, and they also provide a lot of the generic items. They compete on those generic items with Tesco and Marks & Spencer. For example, a pair of black trousers costs £15.40 from that provider, whereas from Marks & Spencer it is about £13. They know they are in a competitive market, and it is absolutely right that they are in a competitive market. It is not just about cost; as several Members have said, it is also about quality.
An interesting point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) about VAT. VAT does apply to children’s clothes for children above the age of 14. After we have left the European Union, we may perhaps look at that. It has been the historical position for some time, but clearly people leave school at a later age than when that VAT policy was implemented, and perhaps we should look at it again. He is quite right that it would reduce by 20% the cost of uniforms for parents and young people.
I am very pleased to be able to support the Bill, and pleased that the Government are supporting it. I encourage all Members to do so, so that this Bill makes a smooth passage through the House.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me for calling me to speak in this debate on a subject that affects families across my constituency of Putney and across the country. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on taking up this Bill. Like many others in this debate, I am speaking in favour of uniforms, but against the excessive cost of uniforms, which in my experience is increasing. I am in favour of the statutory guidance to enforce the Department for Education’s existing guidelines, which make cost and affordability the priority in choosing and setting a uniform list.
I have four children, and it is an extremely proud moment when I dress them up in their uniform—they are very proud to be wearing it—and take them off to their new school. However, there was a heartbreaking moment for me when I attended an open day with my son, when we were going around local comprehensive schools, and I sat down to hear the headmaster’s speech. In front of me, another mum sat down and picked up the information about the school. I saw her picking up the uniform list, looking down it and turning to her son and saying, “We can’t go here”, and they left. That school was never available to them. With that school’s current uniform policy, if someone buys one item of clothing of each of the items, it is £468.50. That is a huge bill to face in September, if their child is going to school for the first time. The uniform policy is a hidden cost for parents at this school, but that parent will never have a chance to have a say on that school’s uniform policy because she will never be going there. That is why this legislation is so important.
Sarah Chapman, who works at the Wandsworth food bank, told me:
“The impact of school uniform costs for families on low incomes can’t be underestimated”
in her experience of talking to families.
“It’s a constant theme in conversations with families at the food bank, especially before the new school year starts, and especially if children are moving to secondary school.”
She says that branded uniforms—it is not just blazers and PE kits; at some schools, it is also skirts and trousers—can push low-income families into struggling to pay the rent and to buy essentials such as food. She says:
“Many parents tell us that it was so much better when the uniform needed was generic grey/black skirts/trousers…which they could buy at much lower cost”,
but still at good quality, from supermarkets.
The food bank has recently been supporting the mum of one daughter of secondary school age, who fled domestic violence and was unable to work or claim benefits while the Home Office processed her asylum application. When Sarah met her, the pressure of previous trauma and present inability to provide basic essentials for her daughter meant she had recently attempted to take her own life. She said that one of the big things for her was that her daughter, at secondary school, was having to wear hand-me-downs she had long grown out of, and as a result was being laughed at by other students. Local church members clubbed together to get her money for her uniform, and she now feels more comfortable being at school in clothes that fit, unsurprisingly. That has lifted a lot of pressure off, but has not fixed the root problem that prescriptive, branded uniforms place unnecessary financial pressures on low-income families. That family will face the same problem again as the daughter grows.
A Children’s Society survey has found that 13% of parents are getting into debt to cover school uniform costs, so that story is not alone. Nearly one in six families said that school uniform costs were to blame for them having to cut back on food and essential items. Uniform to start secondary school can be several hundred pounds, but the costs do not need to be so excessive, and the Bill will result in policy reviews that put affordability first. As many hon. Members have said in this debate, the problem is not with having a uniform, but that schools are increasingly using compulsory branded clothes from exclusive suppliers as part of the uniform. It does not need to be that way.
The Children’s Society research also shows that having an exclusive supplier increases the average cost of a uniform by £71 for secondary schools and £77 for primary schools. My children have been to several different schools during their careers, and there is no school they have been to that does not have an exclusive supplier. The Bill will stop comprehensive schools using uniform as a form of selection by the back door. Legislating for guidance by the Secretary of State to all schools will require them to follow current best practice, which says that when considering how school uniform should be sourced, governing bodies should give highest priority to the consideration of cost and value for money for parents. That will put parents and governors back in the driving seat when it comes to reviewing those policies. Items should be available from good-quality and affordable stores, and exclusive single supplier contracts should be avoided. Too often, schools do not follow that, and governors and parents do not have a basis to challenge those decisions: I think that is the difference that this legislation will make.
I am very pleased to support the Bill. Too many families are paying over the odds for uniform, are going into debt, or are being forced to choose between breaking the rules and breaking the bank. Let us make sure that no child is unable to apply for any school just because of unnecessarily excessive uniform costs.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
I welcome the Bill. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and I met two or three weeks ago in a television studio where we were on a programme together. Much like my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) , the hon. Gentleman is such a nice man that I think he could persuade me of most things, but he was certainly an articulate advocate for this very important issue when we discussed it in the green room at the television studio, and he has been so again today. I am very proud to come here today, as I said I would, and support him and the Bill.
I will not repeat all the reasons why uniform is a good thing. We have heard lots of reasons so far. I am stood here today because a constituent came to me and said, “James, we have an issue. My daughter, who is unemployed through no fault of her own, has two children at high school in your seat. She is facing a cost of over £300 in respect of the clothing and sporting equipment for her children to go to school.” It was not a case of affordability or an issue for debate: my constituent’s daughter simply did not have the money to provide the uniform that the school in my constituency required her children to have to go to school in the first place. I made inquiries with the school. It is a good school, but it did not have any procedures in place to assist with the costs. I went to my local authority, which also did not have any procedures in place to assist with the cost. It seemed to me that that was a completely unacceptable situation. It is not a question of one person or 5,000. The interests of the one are just as important as the interests of the 5,000 who are affected by something.
The Bill is welcome. I think at its heart is a very simple message. It would give a clear signal to school governing bodies that uniforms must be affordable: how on earth can anyone argue with that? Local authorities are not private businesses, they are state organisations, and they need to provide the best means by which our children can thrive and succeed. Discrimination should not happen as a result of what they have to wear, their background or their parents’ income.
am a chair of governors at a nursery school, so we do not have some of the problems we have heard about today, but it is in extremely deprived area of my seat. We have a wide catchment area, but many parents at my school could not afford the prices that are being charged for uniforms, and I do not want them to be penalised for that.
This is a simple but excellent Bill that will help and assist in a positive way. But there are other things we should take away from this debate. We should not simply stop here, and as MPs we should work with our local authorities and encourage our schools. Some schools in my area are fantastic and help their pupils through various payment plans and other ways of affording uniform, but we should try to work with our local authorities to ensure that all of them have some financial support in place for constituents, like mine, who are not in a position to send their children to school because they cannot afford the uniform.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly). They say every day is a school day: well, thanks to the speech by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), I now know what a mufti day is.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on introducing this important Bill, and I am proud to be a sponsor of it. Last week, I was contacted by a woman whose grandson was given a detention because he did not have the right school shoes. Families are waiting for payday to get their children the right uniforms, and in the meantime pupils are suffering. Many of my constituents have spoken to me about the affordability of school uniforms, including one family who had to pay £200 for one child for school uniform and PE kit. That is completely unacceptable. Buying a school uniform for your child is not a one-time occurrence, because kids grow. Parents and carers spend sleepless nights worrying about how they will pay for new shirts, shoes or trousers. Children from poorer families who are unable to replace worn-out or outgrown items of school uniform struggle, and that has to stop.
Last summer, I launched my school uniform exchange in partnership with Barnsley Council. We placed donation boxes in libraries across Barnsley so that families could benefit from donated items of school uniform that were no longer needed.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
In Warrington, we have a number of community-led school uniform swap schemes to ease the burden on parents, particularly where they have children in different schools or children who seem to outgrow their uniform as quickly as they get it. Indeed, Warrington food bank also provides school uniforms to families who need them. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill would support such initiatives by making school uniform more affordable, not only for individual families but for the community schemes that support them, by ensuring branded items are kept to a minimum and generic items can be bulk-bought?
Stephanie Peacock
I completely agree, and my hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. Her community, like mine, has shown kindness and generosity. Parents and carers across my community came together, and we collected hundreds of items. Families should not be forced to fork out for increasingly expensive items of school uniform. Compulsory branded items and limited numbers of uniform suppliers have caused school uniform prices to skyrocket, severely impacting the household budgets of many families.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent and very powerful speech, no doubt based in part on her experience as a teacher. Does she agree that this huge issue that we have been discussing this morning also needs to be seen in the context of static or falling family incomes and rising fuel, transport and food prices?
Stephanie Peacock
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This issue does have to be seen in the context of the past 10 years. My area in Barnsley has had the worst cuts in the country, and no doubt that has had an impact. There is no reason why clothes from everyday shops should not be used at a fraction of the cost. Right now, there is no legislation in England that regulates school uniforms. The Bill will make a difference to families in Barnsley and across the country who are desperate to give children the best start in life, even if that means spending money they cannot afford on school uniforms that are unnecessarily expensive. New statutory guidance on school uniform costs that must be followed by schools when setting out their uniform policies will help to put an end to spiralling costs. Barnsley families who are already struggling, due to a near decade of Government cuts to local services, are being pushed into financial difficulty by compulsory uniform purchases.
School uniform is an asset to children’s education, from instilling a sense of school community to supporting good behaviour, but if school uniform prices and policies remain unchecked, they will increasingly become a way of entrenching inequality as schools become a place of punishment and stigma for poor children. The Bill has the potential to change those children’s lives, and I am pleased we are supporting it today.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak on the Bill. It is one of those occasions when we in this House get to speak on an issue that affects all of us in our everyday lives and the everyday lives of our constituents. I do not yet have school-age children, although it will not be long—my eldest will go to primary school later this year—but my mother was a teaching assistant for many years and my wife—this is in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, Madam Deputy Speaker—is a governor at the local primary school. This is an issue that I see and hear about all the time. It matters to us hugely.
We ought to consider at the outset whether, in today’s age, there is a need for school uniforms. We live in a world where we want access to the highest form of education for everybody. We live in an egalitarian age, so it is worth considering at the outset whether there is a need for school uniforms. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for making it clear at the outset that this is not an anti-school uniform Bill. In fact, in many ways, we could say quite the reverse. The Bill seeks to ensure that the benefits, as I see them, of school uniform are available to everybody.
There are benefits to school uniforms, provided that they are managed in a judicious and sensible way that ensures there is access to education for everybody. First, it gets children used, at a young age, to dressing formally and professionally. Those habits are harder to bring on later in life, once people have got used to acting and behaving in a certain way. Whether we go on to work in business, law, medicine, Parliament or whatever it happens to be, the need to dress professionally is something that everybody has to learn. It may be a suit and tie, or it may be less formal than that, but it gets people used to that at an early age, which I feel is a benefit.
The second benefit is one that we have heard mention of today: esprit de corps. It is pride. I think it was the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) who made mention of the pride that she had in dressing up her children and sending them off to school on their first day. It provides a pride in an institution. I think we are more likely to see a school that is successful and well regarded in the local community, that children want to go to and is seen to be successful, if people have pride in it. Parents look around and see their children there and are glad that they go to that school.
There is a further benefit, which perhaps has not been mentioned today, which is that it makes things a bit easier for the pupils who are at the school. We live in an age that is increasingly pressured for young people. We have seen that very powerfully in the context of the mental health debate. More is required of young people at a younger age through the Instagram effect: everyone is expected to look good to show that they are on top of fashion and to show that their lives are the glossy image that all their friends are portraying.
Laura Trott
Does my hon. Friend agree that a house system and an ability to identify who is part of your clan within a school is very important to guard against some of the mental health issues he so rightly identifies?
Robert Courts
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She is absolutely right. I do feel that a house system and that pride in being part of a group, as well as the competition between houses, is very helpful in providing a support network. That does help to guard against mental health difficulties, too.
I wonder whether any other hon. Members agree on this point. I do not suppose that any of us, when we were young, particularly enjoyed putting on a school uniform. We would have much rather dressed more informally, following our friends in whatever the latest and greatest trends and fashions were at the time. So no one will thank us for school uniforms, but they do have the advantage that children can just wake up and put it on. They are not required to consider how they look. They are not required to consider whether they are in keeping with fashion, whether they have done better than they did yesterday, or whether they are looking better than their friends and peers in school. To that extent, it helps with focus. It helps students to focus on what they are meant to be doing, which is going to school and focusing on learning, without that added pressure. There are already so many pressures on young people, which we discuss so often, arising from peer groups, social media, the internet and magazines, so it may be that there is that additional benefit.
Even if we all accept that point—I suspect we are all more or less on the same lines in seeing that there is a benefit—there is no getting away from the fact that in some circumstances a school uniform can provide a pressure on parents. I hear in my own postbag, as much as other hon. Members do, from those constituents who struggle with the cost. In some circumstances, it is a cost that they are unable to bear.
James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Obviously, nobody is suggesting that there should be no school uniform, but if we did not have it the cost of clothing children throughout the school year, with the extra pressure on shoes and so on, could be even more than if there was school uniform.
Robert Courts
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that excellent point. He is absolutely right. I spoke a moment ago about the pressure on young people of having to look their best and having to comply with fashion in the absence of school uniform. Of course, that pressure does not just impact on them; it also impacts on the parents who would have to bear the cost. If there is pressure—which one of us does not want to do the best for our children; everybody has that feeling—there will be a cost on parents in providing the latest pair of shoes or any other item in the absence of school uniform. He is absolutely right to make the point that in the absence of school uniform the costs on parents could, in fact, be worse.
Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend accept that it is not just that the cost in total is higher? There is also more social stigma on poorer pupils in a non-uniform environment. When we had a non-uniform day at school, I distinctly remember that, instead of us all being the same, there was suddenly great competition—and very expensive competition at that.
Robert Courts
Absolutely. That is another excellent point. Younger people have an absence of social tact when it comes to pointing out such differences. Schools can be quite brutal places in the sense that the filter that is there in later adult life is absent. Pupils can feel very much that they are the odd ones out if they come from a family who cannot afford the latest fashion.
Damien Moore
Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be more co-operation between primary schools and secondary schools on generic items such as trousers, skirts, shirts and blouses? A parent might buy an item right at the end of a child’s time at primary school that might well fit them in secondary school, but they cannot use it because the uniform is completely different. Does he agree that if local schools got together and worked on generic items, there could be a completely different outcome on cost, because of all the other items parents have to buy when their children go to secondary school?
Robert Courts
I do. That is another excellent point. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) made the point about a student going to school with a jacket that is too long, where it looks like you are wearing your father’s clothes because your parents are trying to get the longest possible wear time out of them. That is understandable and I suppose that that will happen in any event. There is nothing much we can do about that. I suspect that the Government cannot legislate to stop that sort of thing. It is beyond the abilities of this House. [Laughter.] He is absolutely right that when children get to the end of the school year at primary school and they are due to go off to secondary school and have to have new clothes, the old clothes essentially have to be dispensed with when they go to secondary school. We will in due course deal with what will be in the guidance and I will make a few comments about that in a moment, but I think there will be some consultation and that is a point that could be raised.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
On the point that was made about generic uniforms, does my hon. Friend agree that schools could provide those not only for primary and secondary, but to work in areas with gang problems and where people are being attacked because of their school uniform? If there were more generic, simplified uniforms in areas of gang violence and in areas where a uniform is creating mental health issues for someone walking through a certain neighbourhood, they could help. Could we make it as easy as possible for people to have certain base pieces of uniform? Could we look at that—how we could help to level this inequality? It is probably something for the schools to look at, but it is also something we could examine.
Robert Courts
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I am glad that she has. I will come in a moment to the question of how we institute and work the legislation. It is right that decisions be made locally. I will make a comment or two about that in just a second, but that could also be part of the consultation.
Chris Green
The point about transferability from primary to secondary school is incredibly important, and I appreciate the point about not looking too distinctive in particular neighbourhoods, but we have a very mobile workforce. People go from one place to another, and therefore families go from one place to another, so does my hon. Friend agree it is important across the United Kingdom that, as far as possible, people can transfer uniforms from one place to another?
Robert Courts
Both my hon. Friends have drawn attention to the importance of having, essentially, a base layer—perhaps the shirt and trousers could be fairly standard across regions and the country—and then an interchangeable element giving the individuality and the esprit de corps that could be taken off if required.
Andrew Lewer
Could I provide my hon. Friend with some constructive challenge, following some of the comments from colleagues around me? Aneurin Bevan once said that nothing is too good for the working class. Nothing should be too good for any school in any area, and therefore every school should be able to have a distinct and clear, rather than excessively generic, identity, out of pride in their school. I would rather that than everyone being in clothes that look like everybody else’s.
Robert Courts
That is also an excellent point. My hon. Friend touches on the philosophical point that I will come to in just a moment, if I may. I will make a little progress first though.
We all want to avoid the feeling where someone wants to go to an excellent school in their area but cannot because of cost; or perhaps that is the only school, but it comes with a cost burden they do not want. I think the hon. Member for Putney alluded to that point. That is clearly something we would all want to avoid. How we do that is the philosophical point. I generally take the view that the man in Whitehall does not know better than local areas, that over-centralisation generally comes up with the wrong result and that the individual knows better what is right for them and their family than a centralised machine. Therefore, it is quite uncomfortable, on first principles, that the Government should propose to involve themselves in this level of regulation.
Neil O'Brien
My concern is not so much the gentleman in Whitehall as the gentleman in the courts, because what we are discussing is the creation of statutory guidance, with the prospect of disputes over school uniform policies being referred to the courts. Does my hon. Friend agree that, while we want to reduce costs, we must draw up this guidance in such a way that minimises the use of this new statutory guidance as a political weapon to cause trouble for academy schools, for example?
Robert Courts
I could not agree more—my hon. Friend is absolutely right—but that point does not so much go to the principle of the Bill as to what goes into the guidance when it is drafted. That is a matter for the consultation, which we should all want to look at in great detail. A lot of the concerns raised about the Bill allude to what is to be in that guidance and the consultation process, which I understand will happen in due course.
Philosophically, I would prefer national government not to involve itself in this level of detail. That is fairly standard Conservative thought; I suspect that most of my hon. Friends would agree. So what are we trying to do with this Bill? Ultimately, Conservatism is about pragmatism and seeking the result we would all wish to achieve, rather than being obsessed with or trammelled by dogma. In some circumstances, therefore, I think it appropriate that the Government step in and Parliament legislate, and that is what the Government are ultimately trying to do here.
The Department has already produced the guidance; the only question here is what someone can do if that guidance is not followed. As I understand it, the Bill seeks to provide that, in extremis—where a school is not listening—there is an appeal to the Secretary of State, who could then intervene to work with the school to address those concerns. The Government are not proposing to impose a certain school uniform type, or to abolish it, or to be the recourse in the first instance for any complaint. As I understand it, in all circumstances, that would remain with the school and the school governors.
This brings me to the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer)—I apologise to him for not having addressed his point earlier. I am interested in freedom, personal choice and localisation and localised decision making, and it seems to me that the Bill does not contravene those fundamental principles. If schools locally decide they do not want a generic uniform, they could make that decision. Equally, if they decide that across a particular town or region it would be in the interests of their pupils to do that, they could adopt that principle and make that choice. I am happy with that in these circumstances.
Neil O'Brien
Does my hon. Friend agree that, as we move from non-statutory guidance to statutory guidance, actually, there is a strong argument for somewhat looser guidance and more carve-outs? For example, achieving non-single supplier status is much more difficult in remote rural areas than in the middle of London. In some sense, the guidance, if it is to be statutory guidance, needs to be looser, if we are to avoid lots of appeals to the Secretary of State and excessive clampdowns on our hard-won school freedoms.
Robert Courts
Yes. That is another superb point. I hope this is a useful debate for the Minister in thrashing out in advance some of the points we will need to consider in the consultation. One of the great successes of this Government and their predecessor Governments over the last 10 years has been the creation of freedom and choice for schools, which has led to the outstanding educational results we have had, and I would not want any of that to be reversed. I am very aware of that.
I would like more competition in the provision of school uniforms. Generally—again, this is fairly uncontroversial Conservative thought—I believe that more competition will generally lead to a better product and lower prices, and I would like that to be the case here. That said, I am aware of my hon. Friend’s point that that might be hard to achieve in rural areas, and I certainly would not wish schools to be penalised for transgressing a rule that it has no choice but to contravene.
As a general principle, I would like the Government to stay out of people’s professional affairs and lives wherever possible. I would like outstanding teachers to do the job of teaching and to concentrate on their passionate desire to make people’s lives better, without worrying about being taken to court or excessive regulation coming from Whitehall. I am, therefore, very aware that there is an important balance to be struck here, but that is a question for the consultation and the statutory guidance that will come after that.
My final point is about quality as opposed to sheer cost. Some excellent points have been made about quality items that could be handed down through the generations. We have heard great examples of that on both sides of the House. Sheer unit cost ought not to be the overriding point, if quality is being lost in the process.
Overall, however, while at first glance some aspects of the Bill seem counterintuitive for this Government, it is a judicious use of small-scale intervention to do our best for something that matters to us all—the welfare of families in our constituencies and the children and students who go to our schools—and therefore I support it.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
I start by wishing my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) a happy birthday—[Hon. Members: “Hooray!”] I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on introducing this important Bill and thank all hon. Members from across the House who have spoken in today’s debate. He is not just an hon. Friend, but an actual friend, and not just mine, because it seems that the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) and other Members have taken to him as well. I do not think that that is down to his good fashion sense—[Laughter.] As he pointed out, school uniforms can hide some of the disastrous fashion mistakes that many of us have made. My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) mentioned his school uniform fashion, his trainers in particular, and many Members will know that I have an obsession with shoes, and I have put my own little twist on things with the ones I am wearing today.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale in paying tribute to the former Member for Peterborough, Lisa Forbes, who introduced a similar Bill in the previous Parliament and did so much to bring the issue to the nation’s attention. My hon. Friend’s Bill is important because there are no binding rules on school uniforms in England. I hope the Minister’s response will answer my hon. Friend’s points about limiting branded items and breaking down the monopolies of single suppliers, and many Members quite rightly mentioned the quality of school uniforms.
I reiterate that this Bill is not anti-school uniform, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) outlined in her valuable contribution. We also heard from the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) and the new hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton), who continues the legacy of the previous Member for his constituency with his passion for education and his personal experience, from which I am sure the House will benefit. I also acknowledge the expertise of the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) shown in his contribution. The hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) made a pithy speech—[Laughter.] There was so much of value in it that there is not enough time for me to go through it all, but he clearly has a talent that will be used many times in the House in the coming months and years.
I am pleased that there is a consensus across the House today on this Bill. It was in November 2015 that then Tory Chancellor promised to legislate on such issues, but we are now four years and four Education Secretaries on. I have responded to three Conservative Queen’s Speeches and still nothing has happened. It has fallen on Labour Members to step in, introducing two Bills in six months. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale, with the help of Back Benchers from across the House, including the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), has had to do the Government’s job for them, and I hope they will now offer him their full support.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale mentioned in his opening speech, school uniform costs blight working families in England, and many Members have spoken about examples from their constituencies. Although I am in a privileged position now, I remember all too well just how expensive it was to put my first son through school. It is a problem that still affects my constituents today, as well as the friends I grew up with. My hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) all expressed that point eloquently in their passionate contributions today. Their complaints echo the concerns of the mums who gave evidence to the Select Committees on Education and on Work and Pensions last summer and spoke of the strain of school uniform costs and the huge pressures put on their budgets in the school holidays. The Minister will know that the previous Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee warned the Government that school uniform costs reinforced the financial difficulties that many parents face during the summer holidays. I pay tribute to the organisations and MPs who assist with the swap of school uniforms to help those parents.
Many Members mentioned the figures from the Children’s Society that were released today, showing that parents are spending over £300 on uniforms and that hundreds of thousands of children across England are going to school wearing incorrect or ill-fitting uniforms. I know that some Members question that research, but many families watching this debate know the reality, and I welcome the work of the Children’s Society that has contributed to today’s debate. Parents have reported that they have had to cut back on essentials like food to cover the cost of school uniforms, and children have been sent home and denied their education, but this Bill will change that. The hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) and others made important points about pragmatic considerations, and it is right that we consider them, but it is also right that I share that I also have a love for “The Simpsons” and that I am about to hit a milestone which means that I am old enough to remember the Bartman—[Laughter.]
The Bill will ensure that hard-pressed parents will not suffer the indignity of their children being sent home because they are wearing the wrong uniform. It will free up money for parents to spend on activities for their kids during the summer holidays. Above all, it will ensure that no child is priced out of school, because our fundamental belief is that education should be free, and under my national education service it would be free and lifelong at the point of need as well. This Bill takes us one step towards that ideal. I am proud to endorse it today, and I urge all Members to support it.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on his success in the private Member’s Bill ballot and thank him for choosing the cost of school uniform as the subject of his Bill. School uniform has so many positive benefits for pupils and schools alike, and I, along with many of the House today, greatly value its contribution to school life. I am pleased that the Government are able to support his Bill and, indeed, to be working with him, so that families are financially reassured, not burdened, at back-to-school time.
As the hon. Gentleman stated, this Bill is not anti-school uniform—“far from it,” he said—because he remembers his time at a school without a school uniform in that fashion golden age of the late 1970s and early 1980s. He pointed out that a lack of school uniform highlights the difference between
“the haves and the have-nots”.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) cited pupils from William Harding School and St Edward’s Catholic Junior School in his constituency, who said that school uniforms stop children being judged on what they wear. He also went to a school that did not have a school uniform at the time and where the result was close to a “catwalk competition” that he claimed he never won, which frankly surprises me—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) raised the cost implications of dress-up day, which was an issue of particular concern at his old school: Hogwarts—[Laughter.]
We debated this issue just a few months ago in a Westminster Hall debate secured by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). Then, as now, our position is that school uniforms should be affordable and good value for families. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for choosing this topic, as it is a subject that crosses party lines and the Bill will positively improve the lives of families across this country. I support the way that the hon. Member constructed the Bill as a straightforward mechanism to put the non-statutory guidance on school uniform costs on to a statutory footing. I hope that that approach means it will progress quickly through the House.
Neil O’Brien
As we move from non-statutory to statutory guidance, is the Minister conscious that some of the issues touched upon in the current non-statutory guidance, such as religious freedom, cultural differences, parent voice and the governor’s responsibility to take into account reasonable requests for change, could become very politically contentious? They could drive a large number of cases on to his and his fellow Ministers’ desks. Is he sympathetic to my thought that we should be clear in new statutory guidance about the kinds of things that will still be the subject of local school freedom and local choice and not the decision of the man in Whitehall?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Those issues are important and are all covered in the non-statutory guidance. The Bill does not seek to put those items on to a statutory basis; they will remain in the non-statutory guidance. The Bill seeks to put the cost elements—just the items relating to the costs of school uniform—into statutory guidance.
A school uniform is important. It helps to create a school’s identity. It fosters belonging and, with that, a sense of community. It can make background and family income less transparent, working instead to highlight commonality among pupils. It is a “social leveller”, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer). For many pupils, wearing their uniform gives a sense of pride. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) emphasised, that is a key objective of a school uniform. When pupils represent their school at events or competitions, their uniform plays an important part in creating a team spirit.
The Government encourage schools to have a school uniform because of how it can contribute to the ethos of a school and help them set an appropriate tone, supporting good behaviour and discipline. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) cited a school in his constituency that saw a marked improvement in academic standards following the introduction of a zero-tolerance policy on school uniform. That is why affordable uniforms are so important. School uniforms are also important in teaching children how to dress professionally, as pointed out in the tour de force of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts). For many schools, a school uniform can be a reflection of the school’s history or the history of the local area, and it is right that schools are able to continue to honour tradition in that way and preserve their long-standing identity.
The Government also believe that it is right for the responsibility for setting school uniform policy to rest with the governing body of a school, or the academy trust in the case of academies. It is for schools to decide whether there should be a school uniform and, if so, what it should be and how it should be sourced. The Bill upholds and protects schools’ decision making in those areas. It upholds all the freedoms that are so important to the Government and to my hon. Friends the Members for Witney and for Harborough (Neil O’Brien).
In an increasingly autonomous school system, it is right for schools to make those decisions, but in doing so, it is essential that they consider value for money for parents. Issuing statutory guidance will enable schools to take decisions within a sensible framework that prioritises the issue of costs for families.
Rob Butler
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Bill will also help those parents who have children in different schools and therefore do not benefit from the possibility of handing down a uniform from one sibling to another? The affordability that would result from the Bill would help those particular parents.
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend raises an important point. No matter how much we try to have uniform swap exchanges, as I will come to, or, indeed, hand-me-downs, when there are different schools with different uniforms, inevitably parents will need to buy a new uniform, and in those circumstances we want to make sure that the costs are affordable for those families.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for his sympathy with the values of the Bill. Will he make a few remarks about how he will engage across the country as the Bill and the statutory guidance move forward? Will he reassure the House that teams in Whitehall will be gender-balanced? We have had three references to men in Whitehall today, but I think we all acknowledge that there are women involved in the work of Whitehall as well, and it is particularly important to give that message in the month of International Women’s Day.
Nick Gibb
If the hon. Lady turns her eyes to the civil service Box, she will see that six out of seven members are women, reflecting the gender balance that is prevalent in the Department for Education. She raises an important point about the statutory guidance, and we will be talking to schools, suppliers of uniforms and all the stakeholders about making statutory the guidance that has already been drafted.
We can all appreciate the positive impact that a school uniform can have on the sense of cohesion and community, but equally, we understand the financial burden that it can present, particularly for lower-income families. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) said, a school uniform can often be less expensive than not wearing school uniform. In 2015, the Department commissioned the cost of school uniform survey, which showed that the average cost of a school uniform was £213 and that the average cost of most uniform items decreased between 2007 and 2015, once adjusted for inflation—a point referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). More recently, the Schoolwear Association undertook a survey that found that the average cost of branded items for a child starting secondary school was £101 for both uniform and sportswear, and that the average annual spend per parent on branded items was between £35 and £45.
The Children’s Society has today released a report which found that parents said they spent on average around £315 on primary and £337 on secondary school uniforms per child. These reports may not all present the same picture of the cost of school uniforms for parents and will depend, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) pointed out, on what is included in the survey. How many pairs of trousers, for example, are included in what parents buy for their children? However, I think we can all agree that the cost can have an impact, particularly on lower-income families, and that it is therefore crucial that school uniform costs are affordable. That is why this Bill is so important and why statutory guidance is needed.
Many schools have, in fact, already made efforts to support vulnerable families with the cost of school uniforms, whether through pupil premium grants or through second-hand uniform schemes such as the school uniform exchange in Barnsley, as pointed out by the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock). I would like to see every school finding a way to make second-hand uniforms available. My younger brother, who you know, Mr Speaker, had the advantage of wearing my hand-me-downs on occasion, and it did not do him any harm.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) is right that schools should be able to help the poorest families with the costs of school uniform. This Bill sends a clear signal to schools that the costs of the school uniform must not be a barrier to parents choosing a particular school for their child or for a child attending a particular school. School uniforms must not be unreasonably priced, and schools must not disregard the importance of achieving value for money for parents. We will be producing statutory guidance on the cost aspects of school uniforms that makes it clear to both parents and schools that uniforms must be affordable and value for money. We will be engaging, as I have said, with key stakeholders to understand their views as statutory guidance on uniform costs is drafted.
Sam Tarry
One school in Ilford South has written to me of their concerns about items that are not strictly part of the school uniform—for example, hairbands that have to be black or the overcoats that the girls wear to school. I wonder whether the guidance that is being prepared could include some flexibility, so that schools cannot specify things that are not school uniform and therefore increase the financial burden on parents.
Nick Gibb
The non-statutory guidance says that branded items should be kept to a minimum, and we support that view. On issues such as hairbands, I would ask the hon. Gentleman to visit the Thomas Jones school in Saint Mark’s road in west London, which has very strict guidance for pupils on issues such as hairbands and other things—small things, such as not having dangly keyrings hanging from their school bags. The consequence is that pupils there are very smart, despite the fact that many of them come from disadvantaged backgrounds. It does create a sense of community, a sense of work ethic and a sense of equality among children from different financial backgrounds. Issues such as hairbands can, sometimes, be more important than the hon. Gentleman might think.
James Cartlidge
I endorse the point my hon. Friend is making. When I was at secondary school, we were not allowed to wear white socks. Obviously, I am not talking about games. I am talking about the socks that children wear with their school uniform and school shoes. Aside from the fact that they look terrible, does he agree that there is no financial implication of requiring children to wear socks of a certain colour? It just looks smarter and more in keeping with the style of the school.
Nick Gibb
I bow to my hon. Friend’s experience of fashion as to whether they look good or not. He is right that just requiring a certain colour of sock, or indeed a hairband, does not necessarily add to the costs for the parents, but it does send a clear message that the school has very high standards of dress and appearance, and that can have an impact on academic standards and the work ethic of a school.
A number of hon. Members have raised issues that relate to the contents of the statutory guidance, and the starting point for that guidance will, as I have said, be the existing non-statutory guidance on school uniforms, but there are two particular issues that I wish to address. The first is branded items. Of course, it is understandable that schools will often want to have branded items of uniform that are specific to their schools, such as a branded blazer or a particular tie, and, at present, the Department’s guidance advises schools to keep such branded items of uniform to a minimum, because multiple branded items can significantly increase costs. Although the Government believe that that is the right approach, we do not want to ban branded items altogether. Branded items such as a blazer of a particular colour or style may well be part and parcel of a school’s history or ethos and may not be available, for example, from a supermarket.
The second issue is single suppliers. The Department’s guidance already recommends that schools avoid exclusive single-supply contracts unless a regular competitive tendering process is run to secure best value for parents. Again, the Government believe that this approach provides the right balance to secure open and transparent arrangements and good value for money. Competition is key to keeping costs down, as pointed out in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton.
Neil O'Brien
I am grateful to the Minister for giving so much of his time. Does he agree that statute often casts a long shadow as people overreact to things? For example, I struggled greatly to sign up to my village newsletter because of people totally overinterpreting the general data protection regulation. Is the Minister sympathetic to my plea for a non-exhaustive list of things that definitely are allowed? Many schools will think, “Oh, gosh, what does this guidance mean? We had better not do this and not do that, because the guidance might say this.” People can be very panicky. Will he please lengthen the non-exhaustive list of things that are definitely allowed?
Nick Gibb
I take on board my hon. Friend’s important point.
For the supply of certain bespoke items, which form part of a school’s uniform, single-supplier contracts can have value. It ensures year-round supply; it allows the supplier to provide a full range of sizes, not just the popular sizes; and it secures economies of scale, so I do not believe that we should ban those arrangements. None the less, we want them to be transparent and competitive.
My hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and for Northampton South, as well as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), raised the issue of the quality and availability of school uniform, which is something that a single supplier from a specialist school uniform retailer will be able to deliver.
We trust headteachers to take the right decisions on these issues, and once the statutory guidance is issued, to abide by it. Where that does not happen and parents have a legitimate grievance, however, there must be an enforcement mechanism. As now, if parents have concerns that their school’s uniform is too expensive, they should raise that with the school and, where issues cannot be resolved locally at the school level, parents may raise it with the Department for Education. Were a school to be considered to be acting unreasonably on the cost of its school uniform, the Bill would enable the Department to act. In extreme cases, the Secretary of State could issue a direction to a maintained school under sections 496 and 497 of the Education Act 1996 to comply with the guidance.
In the case of academies, a provision in the funding agreement states that an
“Academy Trust must comply with…any legislation or legal requirement that applies to academies”.
That means that the duty to have regard to statutory guidance can be enforced using the Department’s enforcement powers under the funding agreement.
School uniforms play a vital role in school communities and are deeply valued by parents and pupils alike. We want uniforms to continue to be held in positive esteem by families, so that the benefits outweigh the costs for families. The Bill ensures that families will not have to worry about an excessively priced school blazer or forgo sending their child to a school for fear of an expensive PE kit. Fundamentally, we want to secure the best value for families and to do so by introducing statutory guidance. The Government support the Bill, and I urge Members of the House to support its Second Reading.
Mike Amesbury
With the leave of the House, I thank everyone who has attended and spoken today, some at more considerable length than others.
I thank the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), the hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), the hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton), my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) —an excellent speech by the way—my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), my new found friend the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly), my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) and the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts). A number of Members have also made powerful interventions.
I thank my good friend and former boss, the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who again made a powerful speech and, very importantly, has been a long-standing champion of this issue. I also thank the Secretary of State, the Minister and the formidable team behind the Ministers who are predominantly women—we should note that—as well as the 20 or so organisations that have been champions of the Bill for some time. Other significant people include the sponsors of the Bill. I will not go through individual names—they know who they are. I thank them for their fantastic and powerful contributions.
Finally, and very importantly, I thank the children involved with the Children’s Society who shaped and contributed to some of the original guidance in 2013. They paved the way for the Bill. As well as consulting with manufacturers and retailers—there are some great ones out there—the Bill, with fair, transparent and competitive tendering, will open up opportunities for them. The shadow Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), wrote to me only yesterday about a manufacturer that is a little concerned about aspects of the Bill. That manufacturer is an absolute bargain basement and it offers quality, so the provisions of the Bill should offer it opportunities.
I again thank the Children’s Society, which has been a key supporter of the Bill. I look forward to contributing to its passage through the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time, to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill (First sitting)
Wednesday 16th September 2020
(4 years, 3 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Before we begin, I have a few preliminary announcements. You will all understand the rules on social distancing. If necessary, I will intervene to remind you, but you are all sitting beautifully apart from each other—thank you for that. Note-passing should be electronic only. The Hansard Reporters would be most grateful if Members would send any speaking notes to them electronically via hansardnotes@parliament.uk. The selection list for today’s sitting is available in the room—I am sorry that it arrived somewhat late. No amendments have been tabled, and I intend there to be a single debate on both clauses of the Bill. We shall now begin line-by-line consideration of the Bill.
Clause 1
Guidance about the costs of school uniforms: England
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. It certainly seems a long time since Second Reading. The Bill passed that hurdle only 10 days before the UK went into lockdown. Even then, I could not have imagined that it would be six months before it came to Committee. The Bill has woken in a different world, but the events of recent months make it more important than ever that we get it through Parliament and that the Government bring forward the new statutory guidance.
Considering the amount of correspondence I have received from across the country, thousands of children, parents, carers and schools will be glad to hear that the Bill has made another step towards becoming law. Many families in our constituencies have faced large cuts in household budgets. Many are out of work for the first time. With the support of the Minister and members of the Committee, the Bill will provide a much-needed helping hand as we transition out of the covid-19 crisis.
I reiterate that I am decidedly pro school uniform, and so is the Bill. I went to a secondary school that did not have a uniform, and I do not believe that that was a positive thing. I believe instead in the power of the uniform to be a great leveller. A well-designed, thoughtful uniform policy can work out considerably cheaper for parents and carers than having no uniform at all. A uniform helps pupils to learn in an environment away from the pressures of the latest trends and fads in fashion. However, some school uniform policies are failing students and undermining the very principle of having a uniform at all.
The purpose of the Bill is not to water down uniform policies or to start a slippery slope towards the end of the school uniform entirely. It is instead to ensure that uniforms are maintained as a way to help children’s education. Uniforms do not do that if students are forced to wear ill-fitting uniforms, or if pupils go without meals or miss school because their parents simply cannot afford the cost of a uniform.
The Bill is very short. It would simply ensure that the Government bring in statutory guidance on the cost of uniforms. I seek from the Minister an assurance that if the Bill completes its journey through Parliament swiftly, he will aim to have the guidance in place for the next school year. That is six years after the Government originally promised statutory guidance. Because of its brevity, I also request that the Government quickly publish a draft form of the guidance.
There is a lot to like about the current guidance, which I believe will form the basis of the new guidance. Within it are several elements that I would like to see kept or in some cases strengthened. First, the importance of affordability must be centre stage. The current guidance states that schools should give high priority to cost considerations. I would like clarity on how that particular aspect will be continued once the guidance has a statutory footing.
Another important element that must be expanded on is the prevalence of excess branding on school uniforms. One parent, Lisa, contacted me about her experience of the cost of her child’s uniform, which must be purchased from a single supplier. When comparing the cost of the items with very similar school items bought at a supermarket chain, she found that it was at least £180 more. Pushing up the price were custom shirts, logoed shirts, polos and pullovers, an extensive logoed PE kit and—my favourite of all favourites—branded school socks.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting the Bill to this stage. I was pleased to speak in support of it at Second Reading. On his point about individual suppliers, does he accept, though, that there are many responsible suppliers of school uniform who are very keen to supply affordable clothes? An example is the company in my constituency called the Print Lab. It supplies 22 schools, and its total cost for a branded uniform is £107.50, so there are people in the business who want to do the right thing.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, and I concur. There is a school uniform manufacturer in my constituency called Buccaneer, which certainly provides good-quality and very competitive products for the school environment. Its frustration is the limited access that it has in the marketplace at the moment.
Compounding Lisa’s case was the fact that pupils had to buy pullovers and polos with their house colours embroidered on them. That limits the ability of families and friends to use hand-me-downs. Lisa found that many parents she knew, who were often unwilling to discuss the financial difficulties, were worried about how they would afford the school uniforms in the coming school year. That indignity, as I am sure Members across the Committee Room would agree, needs to end.
The current guidance encourages schools to keep compulsory branded items to a minimum, but the issue of excess branding has dominated my inbox since I announced my intention to introduce this Bill. I have come to strongly believe that no more than two branded items are necessary for a school to establish a sense of identity, and I would like to see that included in the guidance. Other elements could, for example, be sewn on or provided as badges. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that issue, as I know that it is not straightforward.
Another key element of the guidance will be how it deals with the issue of single suppliers and the tendering process. The current Department for Education guidance stipulates that exclusive single-supplier contracts should be avoided unless regular, transparent tendering competitions are run whereby more than one supplier can compete for the contract and governing bodies can secure the best value for parents and carers. In too many cases—Members will be familiar with this—that simply is not happening. That is shutting good, competitive manufacturers such as—I will mention it again—Buccaneer in my constituency out of the marketplace. That is limiting choice and increasing costs.
One parent from Bristol emailed me to say that although several suppliers sell a brand of trousers that his son’s primary school requires, the school stated just this summer that the trousers can be purchased only from one particular supplier and must now be embroidered by that supplier to prove where they were purchased. That comes alongside the need for a branded polo shirt and sweatshirt, which, again, can be purchased only from a single supplier. I do not see how this arrangement can stand up to competition laws. Indeed, the Competition and Markets Authority has contacted me regarding the Bill, having long been concerned about the practices of many schools.
Several avenues have been suggested by the Department for Education. One is to do away with single-supplier arrangements completely to ensure competition. Another option, based on the current guidance, is to ensure that regular, transparent tendering processes take place. That part of the statutory guidance should be looked at very carefully. Despite the clear guidance from the Department for Education and the warnings from the CMA, some schools continue with utterly opaque practices that do not ensure value for money or easy availability of uniform for parents. Without clear directions, these practices will simply continue.
Finally, one aspect of the guidance that I know the Minister believes in very strongly is around sustainability. We should encourage people to reuse uniforms and suppliers to make lasting, sustainable clothing. However, I do not want that approach to become an alternative to making sure that school uniforms are affordable first hand to pupils. I have been contacted by many volunteers across the country who run excellent uniform banks in their local areas. I respect their work hugely, but they themselves will say that parents should not have to rely on charity to afford school uniforms, and they strongly support the measures outlined in the Bill. None the less, schools should be required to provide parents with regularly updated information about second-hand suppliers, school swap shops and clothing banks, as well as information on locally available grants. I would like to see that requirement included in the statutory guidance.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply and other Members’ contributions, and to working with everyone here and the Department over the coming months.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
I agree with every word that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale said. However, I am afraid that the lawyer in me is coming out with respect to some parts of what has been said.
One is affordability. From what I understand, although the guidance will be provided by the Government, affordability will still be decided by the governing body. If, for example, a parent or whoever it may be believes that the governing body is not acting in line with Government guidance regarding affordability, in that the uniform is still too expensive for many parents, I would be interested to hear how they could challenge the decision of the governing body.
I welcome the hon. Member’s comments regarding affordability, but how do we define it? How does a governing body define it? Is it in respect of the mean income of the parents in the school? Is it in respect of the lowest income of parents in the school? A lot of my constituents and a lot of his constituents are on state benefits, so affordability for them is very different from what it is for parents on higher incomes.
However, those are just questions. I congratulate the hon. Member on the Bill, which is excellent, and I was glad, like my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury, to be there on Second Reading.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Diolch, Ms Nokes. It is an honour to serve under your chairship. It is also an honour to be on this Bill Committee, and I pay tribute to the fantastic work that my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale has done on an issue that he has advocated for passionately for a long time.
The cost of school uniforms is a huge issue for many families across the UK, and it is vital that the UK Government are committed to producing statutory guidance for families in England, which will allow them greater choice about where they can buy their children’s uniform.
Members may wonder why I, as a Welsh MP, would want to be involved in a Bill Committee on a topic that is so clearly devolved to our fantastic Welsh Labour Government. As you will know, Ms Nokes, I am nothing if not persistent in my ambition to shamelessly support the work of the Welsh Labour Government at any opportunity. Members may have heard the tried and tested phrase, “Where Wales leads, England follows.” The Welsh Government published statutory guidance to make school uniforms more affordable, accessible and gender-neutral more than a year ago, which is a prime example of that very accurate phrase in action.
Governing bodies of schools in Wales are now expected to consider ways of keeping down the cost of uniforms. The Welsh Government’s pupil deprivation grant, plus additional school uniform guidance, are designed to help reduce the burden on families so that children can focus on fulfilling their potential at school. The guidelines include stipulating the basic items and colours, but not styles, which allows parents to buy items of uniform from more than one outlet. The Department for Education must afford parents in England the same flexibility, and affordability must be a top priority when setting uniform policy.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale on securing the Bill and on his long advocacy on this issue.
The Bill will make affordability the priority consideration in statutory guidance, which will go a long way towards levelling up our treatment of uniforms, which has been slipping in many ways. My eldest child went to school in 2001, a long time ago; my youngest is in school for four more years—four more years of buying uniform. That has been a lot of uniform along the way. In that time, I have seen the creeping number and cost of additional items that need to be bought for uniform, inconsistency between schools and the incremental use of “My uniform costs more than yours” as a proxy for better school standards, in order to attract students to academies.
When my youngest child went into year 7, his uniform bill was an eye-watering £468.50. It could only be bought from one school uniform shop. I had to top it up recently—he has unfortunately grown a lot—and that cost another £200. Those figures are unsustainable for many families. I support school uniform guidance that ensures that there is less branded, expensive uniform, which drives many families into debt; that provides for not so many exclusive suppliers, who do not put affordability at the top of the list; and that ensures that good-quality, own-brand supermarket choices can be made and that clothes swaps are easy.
The Bill is for that mum who, when I was looking round the local comprehensive for my children, sat down in front of me, picked up the uniform bill, looked at her son, shook her head and walked away from the school. He was not able to go to that school because of the cost. There are many families who face those choices.
The Bill is for those families who I took on trips last summer when I was running a youth group. I sat down and talked with the mums. They said that they had not been able to afford any other trips with their children because they were saving the money and that they were eating less during the summer because they knew the uniform bill was coming—that dreaded moment in September was coming, when they would have to go to the uniform shop.
The Bill is for governors and parents. It will put them back in the driving seat, able to challenge the school uniform bill. It is for our comprehensive education system; it will strengthen uniform policy so that all children feel equal—so that there is less difference between children, for which they can be bullied and because of which they often miss school.
I seek assurance from the Minister that he will work with the Children’s Society, which has talked with many parents and strongly represents them, on the guidance. I seek assurances that the guidance will include details on how parents and governors can use it to challenge the system in their school—it must give them that ability—and will clearly state how they can do so. I seek assurance that it will provide more choice for parents, so that they are able to put affordability at the top of the list, and that there will transparency for single-supplier tenders, focused on best value, through either regular reporting to governors or looking at the system overall. One primary school in my constituency insists that uniform can be bought only from a department store in Sloane Square, for example.
Minimising branded items is an absolutely fundamental part of the guidance, as is the need to promote school uniform banks and grants, so that even before a parent comes to a school, they can see in the guidance where help is available if they know that this will be a difficult issue for them. Finally, I hope that the guidance will come out soon, in good time for schools to readjust their policies for the next school year.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
I would like to add my support to the Bill, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for bringing it forward, which is important. As a mum of two schoolchildren, I have lived the school uniform life. I am delighted that my daughter has now gone into the sixth form, where they do not have a uniform policy—I enjoy the morning fashion shows.
However, my son is still in school uniform. Yes, we need to make it cost-effective and allow families of all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life and social and economic backgrounds to be able to afford it, but this is about quality as well. My experience is that a blazer for my daughter lasted five years, and that my son’s blazer lasted one year. It is about quality; we have to ensure that, although these things are cheap, they last. It is important to ensure that school uniform providers provide quality, as well as ensuring that uniforms are sold at a reasonable price.
Many school sixth forms now insist on some type of school uniform, which might be suits, particularly for boys. Again, that is a big added cost for families. In my constituency, a group of parents from Pimlico Academy has been campaigning on this issue. I understand that the school changed its policy recently and gave parents only about two weeks’ notice. The parents are concerned that this is an added financial burden for them at this moment, particularly for many who are on furlough or who have lost their jobs.
I absolutely support the ethos of the Bill, and I welcome the fact that the Government can, hopefully, ensure that families can afford decent, high-quality school uniform for their children throughout their school years.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale for his work on the Bill, and I congratulate him on the success he has had with it thus far. The Bill had its First reading on 5 March and passed its Second Reading on 13 March without a Division. Current guidance on school uniform for governing bodies, school leaders, school staff and local authorities was published in September 2013 and is non-statutory. Consequently, there are currently no binding rules on school uniforms in England.
The Bill would impose a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance to the appropriate authorities of relevant schools in England on the costs aspects of school uniform policies. It would ensure that the appropriate authority of a relevant school must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State when developing and implementing a school uniform policy for a school.
The Opposition support the Bill and have long talked about poverty-proofing schools. Indeed, tackling the cost of school uniforms is one of the ways we feel that that can be achieved. It is pleasing, too, that the Government support the Bill, and I am encouraged that the schools Minister has talked about how the Bill
“will positively improve the lives of families across this country.”––[Official Report, 13 March 2020; Vol. 673, c. 584.]
Research shows not only the high cost of school uniforms, but the vastly increased cost of school uniforms over the past few years. For example, research by the Department for Education in 2015 showed that the average total expenditure on school uniform for the 2014-15 school year up to the end of February 2015 was £212.88. Parents responding to a Children’s Society survey in March this year said that they spent an average of around £337 on secondary school uniform each year. Parents of primary school children say that they are now paying as much as £315 a child per year. With that in mind, families with three children could be paying around £1,000 a year just to send them to school in the right uniform.
It is deeply concerning that high uniform costs are putting additional strain on family finances. The Children’s Society says that 13% of families reported that they had cut back on food and other essentials because of the cost of uniforms. The impact is even greater for low-income families, with 23% saying that they had to cut back. That is a wholly unacceptable state of affairs.
The Children’s Society further noted that children had been bullied, felt left out or even been excluded from schools for wearing incorrect uniform.
On Second Reading, the Minister said that the Government will be producing statutory guidance on the cost aspect of school uniforms that makes it clear to both parents and schools that uniforms must be affordable and value for money. Can the Minister set out what specifically he considers to be the cost aspect of uniform policy? Will he ensure that parents are able to exercise choice when it comes to deciding where to buy uniforms for their children? Will it address the issue of transparency of single-supplier arrangements?
The non-statutory guidance states:
“Exclusive single supplier contracts should be avoided unless regular tendering competitions are run where more than one supplier can compete for the contract and where best value for parents is secured.”
How will that issue be dealt with in the new guidance?
Will the guidance address the issue of branding and school logos? The current non-statutory guidance states:
“Schools should keep compulsory branded items to a minimum and avoid specifying expensive items of uniform.”
Does the Minister believe that goes far enough?
The Minister said on Second Reading that the Government
“will be engaging…with key stakeholders to understand their views as statutory guidance on uniform costs is drafted.”—[Official Report, 13 March 2020; Vol. 673, c. 586.]
Which key stakeholders will the Government engage with and when will this engagement take place? Will draft guidance be developed and published before the Bill completes its passage through the House of Commons? What will happen if schools do not comply with the new statutory guidance once it has been published? Can the Minister assure the Committee that guidance will be specific and clear, so that those that it applies to are left in no doubt about their obligations?
Schools play a vital part in local communities, and many already provide help and support to families to signpost them to agencies where they can get financial and practical support. Will the Minister ensure that the new guidance contains the requirement for schools to regularly make information available on local grants and other schemes available to help families with the cost of uniform?
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve for the first time under your careful chairing of the Committee, Ms Nokes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale on introducing the Bill and on its progression to this stage. It is not a small achievement to get a private Member’s Bill to Committee, and I look forward to continuing to work with him on this important issue.
School uniforms are important. Since 2013 we have published guidance encouraging schools to have a uniform because it plays a valuable role in the ethos of the school, instilling a sense of a belonging and setting an appropriate tone for education. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) has said elsewhere, uniform is a leveller between pupils, ensuring that families do not face pressures to buy expensive clothing—the morning fashion show, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster so aptly put it. Uniform helps to deliver routine and structure. As the hon. Member for Weaver Vale said, it moves away from an obsession with the latest trends and fads in fashion. These are all good points about why we believe school uniform is important.
The Government are committed to making uniform affordable. The existing school uniform guidance covers a wide range of issues, one of which is cost. It makes it clear that no school uniform should be so expensive as to leave pupils or their families feeling unable to apply to or attend a school of their choice due to the cost of the uniform. I was taken by the point made by the hon. Member for Putney about the parent she met who was not applying to a school because of concerns over the cost of the uniform.
We welcome the opportunity, through the Bill, to put the cost aspects of the guidance on to a statutory footing. This is a simple Bill that is wholly supportive of school uniform and the many positive benefits that it brings to a school community. As the hon. Member for Weaver Vale said, he is “decidedly pro school uniform” and so is this Bill. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance on the cost aspects of school uniform to which the appropriate authorities of relevant schools in England must have regard when developing and implementing their school uniform policy, and it allows the Secretary of State to revise this guidance from time to time. This is absolutely the right way to establish a statutory underpinning to the guidance, which emphasises the vital importance of cost considerations while empowering schools to make decisions that work for their parents and pupils, with the flexibility for schools to respond to local issues as needed. It underlines that school-level decisions should be taken by school leaders and school governing bodies, informed by a dialogue with parents and pupils.
I know that some members of the Committee are keen to know the Government’s intentions for the statutory guidance that will be issued under the provisions of the Bill. Our non-statutory guidance is clear on three points: first, school uniform should be easily available for parents to purchase; secondly, schools should keep compulsory branded items to a minimum; and thirdly, exclusive single-supplier contracts should be avoided unless regular tendering competitions are run where more than one supplier can compete for the contract and where best value for parents can be secured. The starting point for the statutory guidance on the cost aspects of school uniform will therefore be the cost elements of the existing non-statutory guidance.
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale advocated applying a set limit to the number of branded items that a school may include in its policy. The current guidance is clear that schools should keep the number of branded items to a minimum. The Government believe that that sets a clear expectation that allows schools to take sensible decisions in their own contexts, but I do not consider setting a specific limit to be the best approach.
Mike Amesbury
I said on Second Reading and today that I welcome the fact that the current voluntary guidance talks about a “minimum” amount of branding, but what is a minimum? How do we define it, given some of the practices that are happening up and down the country as we speak?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Member makes a very good point. I will come to enforcement in a moment, and to the concerns that parents might have if they feel that the school has not implemented the guidance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North mentioned, but I wish also to refer to the argument about setting a figure. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) wrote in the Daily Express in June that setting such inflexible limits on branded items might
“force schools to cut back…on distinctive, branded items such as striped blazers and house colours etc.”,
which are an important part of the ethos of a school. He fears that setting a specific number of items might well drive out school uniform altogether.
There are many views about what constitutes a branded item, from a garment with an emblem printed or embroidered on it or a plain garment on which a badge can be sewn, to a bespoke garment without any school emblem but where the style or design is nevertheless distinct to that school. As one headteacher said to me, it can also be important for maintaining behaviour standards in schools. The costs associated with different types of branded or bespoke items are very different, which is exactly what I want schools to take into account when they agree school uniform policies, rather than simply conforming to a limit on the number of branded items and potentially ignoring the impact of more expensive bespoke items.
I do not think it is the role of Government to set a numerical limit on the number of branded items in any school uniform. The principle should be that it is the role of Government and Parliament to set a framework and then to respect the autonomy of decision making at a local level. On a practical level, I do not think that such a limit would work. Would it apply to everyday wear for pupils or would there be separate limits for day wear and PE kit, for instance? What about bespoke items that do not include a school logo? How could they be sensibly and clearly defined for a hard numerical limit? For those reasons, a numerical limit is less practical and less likely to have the intended effect than a requirement to keep the number of branded and bespoke items to a minimum.
I do not believe that we should ban single-supplier arrangements for the supply of school uniform, but they should be transparent and competitive, securing best value for parents. On Second Reading, Members on both sides of the House provided a number of examples of such arrangements working for the benefit of both the school and parents. The Government are clear on the role of single suppliers. Often those are small and medium-sized businesses that play an important role in supporting schools and parents. They are the familiar face of school uniform on our high streets and should not be undervalued in that role.
Mike Amesbury
I think that that is key, really, in ensuring that there is competition and tenders are dealt with in a transparent, organised way. At the moment in far too many areas there has been a historical arrangement based on a nudge and a wink, which has driven up costs. Where there is a single-supplier arrangement, it is key that it should be subject to a tender arrangement.
Nick Gibb
I agree. To achieve best value the contracts need to be subject to effective competitive and transparent tendering. Indeed, that is why the current non-statutory guidance already recommends that schools avoid exclusive single-supplier contracts unless a regular competitive tendering process is run to secure best value for parents. There is an argument for considering whether more could be done to make it clearer for schools what effective competitive tendering means in practice.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North raised the issue of enforcement, and I want to address that. Where parents have concerns about a school’s uniform policy they should raise them with the school in the first instance, via its complaints procedures, which must be published on its website. If their concerns have not been addressed effectively through that process the parents can then raise them with the Department. We would seek to take a proportionate approach to any intervention, depending, of course, on the circumstances of the case.
Fleur Anderson
Would it be possible for the tendering process to have to be reported to the school governors? Many parents do not feel that they can make an internal complaint, because they feel it would come back on their children for some reason. Would the Minister consider a process enabling the parents to be kept out of it, but where it was necessary to report to the governors? That would enable the governors to look at the tendering process whenever it took place.
Nick Gibb
My understanding of schools’ complaints procedures is that they involve the chair of the governing body. I think that is the right approach in addressing cases where any school falls short of proper regard to the guidance.
Many schools offer a second-hand uniform shop to support parents, and a number of commendable local schemes were mentioned on Second Reading. Such schemes are excellent, both for affordability and in reducing clothes waste. I would like every school to find a way to make second-hand uniforms available. Of course, all such arrangements would need to be covid-secure. My parents certainly used a second-hand shop to buy my school rugby shirt, particularly as they knew it was unlikely to get much use.
The hon. Member for Wirral West, who spoke for the Opposition, raised the issue of engagement and consultation on the guidance. I want to make it clear that we will commit to engaging with representatives of schools and with parents and other interested parties when drafting the statutory guidance. That includes the request by the hon. Member for Putney, who raised the question of the Children’s Society. We will of course commit to talk to the Children’s Society.
The hon. Member for Weaver Vale called for the guidance to be implemented by September 2021. I can give him the assurance that the intention is to issue it as soon as practically possible after the Bill comes into force, notwithstanding the need to engage with the sector. We all want to see savings for families as soon as possible, but we need to make sure that we implement it in a way that does not have unintended consequences. No one wants hundreds of school uniform policies to change overnight with parents suddenly and unexpectedly required to buy whole new sets of uniform and uniform suppliers struggling to keep up. I do not therefore believe it would be helpful to include a fixed date by which the guidance will come into force, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will seek to consult on the statutory guidance informally with interested parties and publish it as soon as possible.
Uniform makes an important contribution to school life and should continue to do so. Providing schools with a balanced, pragmatic and flexible framework on cost considerations through the statutory guidance is the best way to achieve the changes we all want to see while protecting schools’ local decision-making. I welcome all hon. Members’ views expressed today, and I am confident from our discussions that we have the right foundations on which to progress the Bill. I commend the Bill to the Committee.
Mike Amesbury
I thank all members of the Committee. This morning shows Parliament at its best, with hon. Members working together constructively as we have throughout the Bill’s passage. I thank the Minister and his departmental officials for ensuring that I have had the support—in fact, that we have all had the support—to progress so far.
We are all change makers in the passage to ensure that the Bill becomes law, not just as legislators or MPs, or to put out on social media and all the rest of it, but for the people we represent, regardless of political party, in particular those hard-pressed children, families and carers. This simple and short Bill can make a significant difference.
I thank the Mirror Group and the Sunday People, which have been campaigning a damn sight longer than I have on this issue and others. I also thank the Children’s Society, which hon. Members have mentioned.
There have been some brilliant contributions to the debate. Wales has led the way, but I hope that we will go one step further. We will learn from the Welsh, but let us have even more informed legislation that will benefit children, families and schools.
Finally, I thank the children, families, schools, unions and the Schoolwear Association for their voices in shaping the Bill so far and ultimately in shaping the guidance. May that continue until the guidance comes to fruition.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Friday 12th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 March 2021 - (12 Mar 2021)
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 2, page 1, line 5, after “must” insert
“within six months of this Act coming into force”
This amendment will ensure that the guidance has to be issued within a specific time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 3, page 1, line 9, leave out
“the Secretary of State considers”
and insert “are”
This amendment will introduce an objective test of relevance in place of a subjective test.
Amendment 4, page 1, line 10, at end insert
“including price, quality, design, place of manufacture and country of origin.”
This amendment will ensure that these aspects bearing upon costs are addressed in any guidance.
Amendment 1, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
‘(2A) But guidance issued under this section must include guidance on—
(a) ensuring there is an adequate market for second-hand uniform where that uniform is provided new by a single supplier, and
(b) establishing a hardship fund for the parents or guardians who struggle to meet the cost of providing uniform for their children.”
Amendment 5, page 1, line 10, at end insert—
‘(2A) Any guidance issued under this section must include advice on ways of minimising the payment of Value Added Tax as a component of the cost of school uniforms.”
Amendment 6, page 1, line 11, leave out “must” and insert “may”
This amendment will enable the appropriate authority to exercise its discretion as to whether or not to have regard to the guidance.
Amendment 7, page 1, line 12, leave out “developing and”
This amendment will restrict the guidance to policy implementation.
Amendment 8, page 1, line 12, after “developing”, insert “, publishing”
This amendment will require appropriate authorities to have regard to publishing requirements in the guidance about costs of school uniforms.
Amendment 9, page 1, line 14, leave out “from time to time” and insert
“, no sooner than five years after the first guidance is issued under this section,”
This amendment will ensure that any guidance remains in place for at least five years.
Amendment 10, page 1, line 18, leave out paragraph (b)
This amendment would exclude an alternative-provision Academy from the provisions of the Bill.
Amendment 11, page 1, line 21, leave out paragraph (d)
This amendment would exclude a non-maintained special school from the provisions of the Bill.
Amendment 12, page 2, line 1, leave out paragraph (e)
This amendment would exclude a pupil referral unit from the provisions of the Bill.
Amendment 13, page 2, line 3, leave out from “school” to “the proprietor” in line 4
This amendment is consequential on Amendments 10 and 11.
Amendment 14, page 2, line 6, leave out paragraph (c)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 12.
Amendment 15, page 2, line 6, at end insert—
‘(7) Before issuing any guidance under this section, the Secretary of State must consult the National Governors Association, the Parent Teacher Association UK and representatives of the different categories of relevant school.”
Amendment 16, in clause 2, page 2, line 9, leave out “two” and insert “six”
This amendment will ensure that any guidance under this Act will not apply to the 2021/22 academic year.
Sir Christopher Chope
My opening remarks will, as ever, be brief. First, let me say how wonderful it is that we have Friday sittings back, and I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to the Leader of the House for having facilitated that. I understand that Her Majesty’s official Opposition were keen that we abandon Friday sittings, so I hope they have now realised that there is a virtue in this, not least because some of the Bills on today’s Order Paper are being promoted by Opposition Members. Let us welcome that and put it on the record.
I wish to speak to the amendments standing in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Shipley (Philip Davies), and to amendment 1, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. The essence of this Bill is something that everybody in the House supports; after all, who wants the cost of school uniforms to be higher than it needs to be? I support the idea that we should have good-quality school uniforms at a competitive price, available throughout schools in England. That is the purpose of the Bill, and the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and I are ad idem on that.
The hon. Gentleman will probably therefore agree with my amendment 2, which is designed to put an end date on what appears to be the Government’s prevarication in getting on with the job. They were first talking about introducing statutory guidance on the cost of school uniform many years ago—back in 2015, if I recall correctly. Since then, not must progress has been made and we are now relying on the hon. Gentleman’s Bill. Again, I congratulate him on having brought it before the House.
The purpose of this amendment is to try to ensure that we get on with it, which is why the amendment proposes that the Secretary of State “must” issue guidance
“within six months of this Act coming into force”.
It is a pity that we have not had the draft guidance already. It was exactly one year ago tomorrow that the Bill was debated on Second Reading, and almost six months after that it had its Committee stage. A further six months on from that, so one year after it was first debated, the Government are still saying that they are intent on bringing forward statutory guidance but have not yet produced even a draft. When this issue was raised in Committee, the Minister for School Standards said that it was his intention to get on with it and that he would be consulting people as soon as possible about it. I interpreted that to mean he would be getting on with consulting on the draft statutory guidance, as that is often the norm in this House. While the House is considering—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. An hon. Member should not walk in front of another Member who is speaking. Please, let us show courtesy to each other.
Sir Christopher Chope
I am all in favour of that. Thank you, Mr Speaker. That is another example of why we need to get back to normal sittings in this Chamber, so that people become more familiar with the way we normally work.
Sir Christopher Chope
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am going to re-emphasise my frustration, which I am sure is shared by the promoter of the Bill, about the fact that we have not yet seen the draft guidance. Once the draft guidance is produced, it will need to be the subject of consultation, and the Minister has committed to doing that, with the various stakeholders.
The guidance needs to be produced within six months of the Act coming into force. My right hon. Friend the Minister said in Committee that he did not want to be tied down to a particular date because he thought that would be too constraining. I can understand that, but unfortunately the worst fears that lay behind the questions put to him now seem to be being realised. We assumed that getting on and producing the guidance was a top priority of my right hon. Friend’s Department. In Committee, he referred to some of the key ingredients that he expected to be in the draft guidance—namely, exactly the same provisions as are in the current non-statutory guidance, which was last issued in 2013. It does not seem as though an exacting demand was being placed on him by the Committee or, indeed, that he was placing one on the shoulders of his officials, so it is disappointing that that has not yet happened. It is therefore important to put in the Bill an end date or a timescale within which the guidance must be issued. That is the purport of amendment 2.
I hope it will be convenient for Members if, instead of going through all the amendments one by one in the order in which they appear on the amendment paper, I jump ahead and go straight to amendment 5, which goes to the heart of one of the issues that I raised on Second Reading a year ago, for which I got a lot of support from the hon. Member for Weaver Vale, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and others.
Amendment 5 says:
“Any guidance issued under this section must include advice on ways of minimising the payment of Value Added Tax as a component of the cost of school uniforms.”
The issue of VAT is solely within the remit of the Government, and VAT is adding 20% to the cost of a heck of a lot of school uniforms. Although we are going to issue guidance to governing bodies, which we say is very important, on the price and quality of school uniforms, the Government have the ability to reduce, at a stroke, the cost of school uniforms by 20% for all those people adversely affected by the current VAT rules. That would not have been possible before we were liberated as a legislature by our leaving the European Union.
I introduced a private Member’s Bill—I cannot remember whether it was in this Session or the previous one—to reduce value added tax. Although it was a financial Bill, I was delighted that, because it would have reduced the burden of taxation, it was within scope for private Members’ legislation. I would have tabled an amendment to this Bill along similar lines, had that been in scope, but unfortunately it would not have been, because it has a very narrow title about guidance to schools. Had the scope of this Bill been slightly wider, I would have tabled an amendment that would have removed VAT from all specific school uniforms, and I am sure that it would have received almost unanimous support in the House. As I cannot do that, I have engendered this debate by saying that included in the guidance should be a reference from the Minister to how schools and governing bodies can minimise the impact of VAT.
I will refer briefly to a BBC reality check. I do not know whether you look at these things, Mr Speaker, but this is a very helpful one. It asks:
“Why is VAT charged on school uniform?”
It goes on to say:
“For older children—or those who are taller than average—”
I will come on to the issue of waist size in a minute—
“school uniforms, as well as all other clothing and shoes, attract the full standard VAT rate of 20%. Reality Check explores why these families are paying more and why successive governments haven’t acted.”
Mr Speaker
Sir Christopher, I hate to interrupt. I recognise the theme, but I think we can both say that Beavers would never be of an adult size. We are not comparing like with like, because there is an age where children go to the next stage in Brownies and Guides—it is the same with Scouts and the Cubs movement—so they cannot be of a size where that would be applicable. As you rightly say, that is applicable to school uniforms that are of an adult size. We would agree—you are absolutely right—that the theme is about the size that uniform comes in, but I worry about trying to compare with something that could never happen.
Sir Christopher Chope
I understand the point that you are making, Mr Speaker. I am drawing attention to this because it actually does happen at the moment. As long as their uniforms are for those up to the age of 14, Beavers and Brownies are able to provide those uniforms free of value added tax, irrespective of the size—
Mr Speaker
I must not have explained it correctly. I think that at the age of seven, eight or nine, children cannot continue, and they go to the next stage within the branch of the organisation. It is a bit like infant school, junior school and high school. That is all I am trying to say. We are getting bogged down in something that would not be applicable.
Sir Christopher Chope
My final line of defence is that this is taken from the BBC’s reality check, and it sounds as though that needs to be revised in the light of your helpful and constructive comments, Mr Speaker.
The final point I want to make on this aspect is that there was recently a survey—it was highlighted in The Guardian, of all newspapers, but the reference I have is from the Press Association—that showed the waistline spread of UK children. I will not go into the whole detail of it, but the survey found that back in 2011, an average 11-year-old girl was 148.78 cm tall compared with 146.03 cm in 1978—an increase of 2.75 cm over that time—but her waistline was 70.2 cm on average, compared with 59.96 cm in 1978. We are talking about an average 11-year-old girl, and the average has probably gone up since 2011, but the limit beyond which the waistline of a garment is subject to VAT is only 69 cm, which shows that the current VAT limit for the waistline measurement of a piece of clothing is well below the average waistline of an 11-year-old girl. That is another example of the way in which the current VAT rules have introduced a sort of stealth tax upon parents who are trying to pay for school uniform.
This amendment is designed to ensure that these issues are addressed by the Minister when he puts out statutory guidance, with advice included in that guidance to schools on how to get around it. Obviously that advice to schools might change if the Government were to accept my advice—and, I am sure, the advice of the whole House—and intervene now to take away the burden of value added tax on school uniforms, thereby reducing the price of school uniforms for everybody affected. I put that in at the beginning of my remarks because I thought it was sensible to set it in context. Obviously, we want to maximise the quality and minimise the price. Everything that follows in relation to this guidance and this Bill is in a sense subordinate to the point I have made, because the issue of VAT is solely within the control of the Government, and I think if the Government acted on it, that would be very popular.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). I am only too pleased that, after his lengthy introduction and thorough examination of the Bill, we are not marking the second anniversary of its introduction.
First, I relay my sincere thanks to Mr Speaker, Madam Deputy Speaker and the team; the Leader of the House; the Minister, the Secretary of State and their Department; my Front-Bench colleagues, and all those who have campaigned over a number of years to ensure that the Bill reached this stage.
This is a short Bill, but it will make a significant difference to hundreds of thousands of children, families, carers and grandparents throughout our constituencies. I thank everyone across the House who has contributed to the Bill’s journey so far, whether or not they are a sponsor and regardless of their political affiliation. As the hon. Member for Christchurch acknowledged, the Bill has considerable cross-party support.
A number of the amendments are quite useful markers to ensure that the Bill has proper, almost line-by-line scrutiny. There are 16 amendments in total. Some, as the hon. Member acknowledged, go beyond the scope of the Bill, and some, I would argue, undermine the very essence of statutory authority.
Amendment 6, for example, refers to a discretionary approach. I say with respect that we have a discretionary approach at the moment, through voluntary guidance, which, as the hon. Member rightly referred to, was put in place in 2013. There are some good elements of that guidance, but voluntary is voluntary, and voluntary can be ignored at people’s discretion.
Mike Amesbury
I need to move on. The hon. Member had a considerable opportunity. Lots of young people up and down the country have waited a considerable time for this legislation to come to fruition, and I hope that it does, so respectfully, I need to move on.
Some of the amendments have considerable merit for discussion. Amendment 1 refers to the market for second-hand goods. The hon. Member referred to a scheme in Weston-super-Mare and the uniform exchange scheme in Huddersfield. I know from discussions that I have had with the Minister that he is very keen on that, and I hope we can capture that in the draft statutory guidance. The amendment also mentions a hardship fund. Certainly, some schools operate such hardship funds, and again, I certainly hope we can capture that in the draft guidance.
The hon. Member for Christchurch has campaigned on the issue of VAT for a considerable number of years. While we were on different sides of the debate on Europe and Brexit, it is a reality that we have now left, and it is also reality that there is discretion on VAT. He already knows my opinion; it is on the record. I am sure that there will be opportunities in Parliament to take that campaign forward, and I will certainly endeavour to assist him in that process. It is a good idea, and it is the right thing to do in the broader mix. Of course, as he acknowledged, it goes beyond the scope of the Bill, but he mentioned that something may be in the draft statutory guidance. Certainly, those are discussions that we can have with the Minister. The hon. Gentleman has rightly put that point on the record, and so have I, as the Bill’s promoter.
This Bill is pro-school uniform, but pro-affordable school uniform. There are far too many children in hard-pressed families, and it is particularly pertinent now—given the national and international health pandemic and the economic consequences we are facing—that affordability is put centre stage in statute, and this Bill will do that. That is the fundamental aspect of it, and it is also about opening up competition, which I know the hon. Member for Christchurch and people across this House would agree with. For far too long, we have had single supplier relationships with schools or school communities and there has been no fair, open and transparent competition. This will help bring costs down for hard-pressed families, while maintaining quality and bringing into play other manufacturers, such as one in Northwich in my own constituency, that are excluded from the process at the moment.
I am going to bring my remarks to a conclusion. Mine have been very brief, because as I said at the beginning, children and families have waited long enough. The Children’s Society, the National Education Union, Members right across this House and the Minister are all keen to move things on, so I hope we can all do this with the House coming together and demonstrating that when we work together, we can achieve so much more. Thank you all.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
I very much welcome this Bill, and I commend the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for proposing it. It provides the teeth of the good intentions contained in current school uniform guidance, it serves the interests of children and their families, and it is good for small businesses.
I am going to comment on the general thrust of the amendments being proposed, but I want to make some brief general remarks at this stage. Education is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, so my main interest in this Bill is on behalf of businesses, such as Border Embroideries in Greenlaw, that produce high-quality school uniforms for sale in England and across all of the United Kingdom. Scotland’s place in the UK means not only that firms in my constituency can sell into a large and lucrative market with no barriers, but that their elected representative has a voice in this place, which decides on the rules for that market.
School uniforms are important inside and outside the classroom. At school, they are a social leveller, eliminating the pressure to keep up with the latest fashion trends and helping to reduce peer pressure to look a certain way. At home too, research conducted by the Schoolwear Association has found that many pupils remain in uniform to complete their homework, creating a useful separation between learning and downtime. Just as football fans wear their team’s colours to a match, so school uniform fosters pride through shared identity. Uniform is cohesive, not exclusive. Well made, durable school uniform also delivers great value for money. Items can be passed down between family and friends or sold on second hand.
I attended a state comprehensive school on the west coast of Scotland, and I am sure Members across the House will be shocked to hear that, at Abbey Primary School and Kilwinning Academy in Ayrshire, I cannot recall being a particularly fashionable youngster. In fact, none of us, no matter our background, had to worry about meeting the latest trends or fashions. I know this was a relief and continues to be a relief for most parents. Having uniform standards from a young age is good preparation for the workplace, particularly for speaking in this place, may I suggest, Madam Deputy Speaker? I know that Mr Speaker and his deputies are very keen to maintain high standards of dress in this place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) recently discovered.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) spoke about quality and design, which was one of his main concerns in his amendments proposed today. In my own constituency, Border Embroideries has been involved in the production of school uniform for nearly 30 years. Billy Smillie and his wife Shirley Anne started their business using a single embroidery machine. Now it is one of the UK’s leading specialist school uniform suppliers, serving customers across the UK. Border Embroideries is a prime example of a business providing competitively priced products, providing jobs for local people and helping the community thrive. It has remained a family business, with Billy and Shirley Anne’s three children Aynsley, William and Ross all taking charge of different aspects of the business.
When I last visited their purpose-built factory in Greenlaw, I was impressed by the scale of the operations, and the range of different addresses to which shipments were being made. In 2020, Border Embroideries received a pivotal enterprise resilience fund grant from South of Scotland Enterprise. That enabled it to employ an additional 80 temporary staff, on top of the existing 80. Those extra staff worked night shifts to enable Border Embroideries to fulfil all incoming orders.
Sir Christopher Chope
I am much reassured by my hon. Friend, but does that include the sources of the materials that are used in the manufacture of school uniforms?
John Lamont
I am grateful for that point, but I am not sure whether the amendment would address that concern. I do not know where all the materials come from, but having spoken to the company, I am confident that it is not only looking after its workforce but concerned about the quality and ethical production of its garments.
Border Embroideries is one of many Scottish businesses that sell their products across the UK, which remains by far Scotland’s largest and most important market—larger than the EU and the rest of the world combined. The amendments, and the Bill more generally, address the affordability of school uniforms, and I welcome what the Bill seeks to achieve. It serves the interests of children, their families and local businesses. Imposing a duty on the Secretary of State for Education to issue statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms, to replace the current non-statutory guidance published by the Department for Education, will deliver real improvements for parents in England.
Scotland has no legislation to govern school uniform policy, which is entirely determined by individual schools. My colleagues in Holyrood are supportive of any measures to keep school uniforms affordable for parents, and I hope that Members of the Scottish Parliament will look at this Bill, and at the debates that have taken place so far, to see whether they can do anything to ensure affordability of school uniforms in Scotland.
While broadly supportive of the Bill, the Schoolwear Association, which has more than 200 members, has concerns about amendments on the issue of sole supply, where a single business is the only supplier of school uniforms to a school. Most businesses in the Schoolwear Association are small or medium-sized, and it is crucial for them to be the sole company fulfilling demand, as that allows them to build up suitable stock. Sole supply should never result in individual items being more expensive for parents, and competitive tendering should ensure good value for money. Instead of taking place at the point of sale to families, competition should occur at the point of supplier selection by schools.
The crux of the Bill, and the tension behind most of the amendments, is affordability. The Schoolwear Association has raised some important points that I believe are crucial to uphold the principle of affordability. Comments by the Minister in Committee highlighted the importance of transparent and competitive tendering processes, particularly where a sole supplier exists. Once again I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale on his success in bringing forward the Bill. It prioritises the interests of children and families, and recognises the importance of local businesses such as Border Embroideries in my constituency.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for bringing this Bill forward. My involvement with this issue began after I was deeply affected by the testimony of a group of mothers at an Education Committee evidence session: they told us how the increased costs and demands of school uniforms meant skipping meals to find the money.
I have tried, Madam Deputy Speaker—I honestly have—but I simply cannot comprehend or understand for the life of me why anyone would want to try to block this Bill to help families in need. Politics is not a game. But then I also cannot understand the level of self-importance of an individual who believes they have something of value to speak on for more than an hour and a half.
Uniform dress codes are no longer about just plain, straightforward uniform, but often involve a badge, sweatshirt and dark trousers, typically also consisting of shirts, ties, blazers, PE kits indoor and out—all branded and often available from only a single supplier. The Children’s Society report “The Wrong Blazer 2018” revealed that families, on average, have to find £340 per year for each child at secondary school. That represents an increase of 7% since 2015. Parents of primary school children spend on average £255. Parentkind’s 2019 annual survey of parents showed 76% of parents reporting that the cost of sending children to school is increasing and more than half are worried about meeting that cost.
I have spoken about this before, but in some areas within the city of Hull more than half the children live in poverty. New Government figures reveal that 18,515 children in Hull were living below the breadline in March 2019—and that is before the cost of housing was taken into account. The number has been rising year on year and is up from 15,629 in 2015. That is before we even look at the impact of covid-19.
One child in 20 has been sent home for wearing incorrect uniform as a result of being unable to afford the uniform specified by the school. In some cases, children miss school altogether because either they or their parents feel ashamed of the condition of the uniform that they could not afford.
The Education Policy Institute report found that disadvantaged pupils are already over 18 months of learning behind their peers by the time they finish GCSEs. In primary schools, that gap has increased for the first time since 2007: up from 9.2 months in 2018 to 9.3 months in 2019—again, before we even look at the impact of covid-19. If Conservative Members are serious about trying to close the attainment gap, surely they will be delighted to support the Bill.
I was a primary school teacher before becoming a Member of Parliament and I absolutely support schools having a uniform, but it needs to be practical and affordable. As a parent, I know that a school uniform makes life much easier in the morning when getting children up, dressed and ready for school. But some school policies insist that parents must buy clothing from specialist shops or suppliers rather than giving them the choice of buying items at cheaper stores such as supermarkets or high street chains.
I have taken action on this locally by working with the Methodist Church to set up RE: Uniform, which asked parents to donate unwanted uniform that was then redistributed to families who wanted it. We have held giveaway events, “click and collect” events and handed out hundreds of items of uniform.
I would like to put on the record my thanks to the Methodist Church for their support with RE: Uniform, and in particular to our Methodist district chair Leslie Newton, Reverend David Speirs, Susie Steel, Kevin Appleyard, Liane Kensett, Louise Zborowski and all the volunteers. All are making a difference where it counts for families and the community in Hull.
But this is just fighting fires. The time has come to protect the millions of families in England living in poverty from further unnecessary hardship by making the guidance on affordable uniforms a statutory duty. That was promised by the Government. In reply to a parliamentary written question on 31 July 2019, the schools Minister stated:
“The Department intend to put the school uniform guidance on a statutory footing when a suitable legislative opportunity arises.”
I urge hon. Members to stop the games, stop the self-importance and seize the opportunity to make life more affordable for parents in this country.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I assure you I will be speaking to the amendments. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), even though she does not yet seem to have grasped the purpose of the Report stage, which is to try to improve Bills. I am sure she will get the hang of that at some point. The purpose of this stage is that we table amendments to try to make Bills better.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on getting his Bill to this stage, which is no mean feat. In principle, the Bill proposes to place school uniform guidance on a statutory footing. Like all previous speakers, I am in favour of what he is seeking to achieve: having high-quality school uniform at an affordable price for parents. However, it is crucial that the Bill is implemented appropriately and that the right amount of time is given to schools and families for the guidance to be introduced, in order to avoid any unintended consequences. I worry, as I do with lots of Bills, that without some of these amendments unintended consequences may counter the purpose of the Bill, which is to protect families and children from mounting costs and exclusion from school life.
It is important to say that school uniform is a vital part of school life—it creates belonging, focus and discipline. In itself, it reduces the cost to parents, by ensuring that there is not an arms race in the latest trends being worn in schools. The Bill is based on findings by the Children’s Society estimating that the annual spend on compulsory schoolwear is £337. That figure is disputed; it is a study based on perception rather than on reality, and on a very small sample size of parents. It does not account for competing research that the Schoolwear Association has commissioned that finds that the annual spend on compulsory schoolwear items is nearer to £36. I thank the Schoolwear Association, with which I have met on multiple occasions during this Bill’s journey. It wishes to flag up concerns about sole suppliers, parents and students being put at a financial disadvantage, on the basis of questionable research.
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for the amendments. [Inaudible.] I hope the Government will agree to support some of these things. I was disappointed that the promoter of the Bill dealt with the amendments so rapidly and did not treat them with the courtesy with which they should have been dealt with. Unfortunately, I cannot take interventions remotely, but it seemed to me that the promoter said that he agreed with many of the amendments but would not accept them. That is a slightly bizarre approach on Report. If the promoter agrees that amendments would improve the Bill, one would think he would accept them and we could move on with a better version of the Bill. I am not sure why we are agreeing with the amendments but not supporting them and agreeing to adopt them. I hope the Minister will make a better fist of that and perhaps support these essential amendments.
Amendment 2 would ensure that the guidance being introduced by the Bill has to be issued within six months of the Act coming into force. The Bill will mean that schools should follow the guidance, but we have yet to see the guidance, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said. Saying that this will be issued within six months will at least give some certainty as to when it can be expected, so that schools, suppliers, parents and students can plan for the change. Without this amendment they are left in limbo.
I understand from the answer to a parliamentary question that I asked back in January that:
“The Department’s existing guidance on cost considerations will form the basis for the new statutory guidance.”
That clearly provides some indication to schools to help them understand what it is that they can expect, but for the avoidance of doubt, this amendment would give absolute assurance to everybody concerned. It would give schools firm dates and sufficient time to review their school uniform policy as a result of the guidance. It would also enable parents to wait until a uniform needs replacing before buying a new one if required to by these guidelines, and it would hopefully avoid the entirely counterproductive effect of forcing parents to purchase a new uniform or uniforms in the near future only to find that a policy has been superseded by the new guidance. Given what the Bill is about, that would be an ironic, unintended consequence, so I think amendment 2 would be incredibly helpful in giving the certainty needed and in keeping down costs for parents.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on bringing this very important Bill to this stage. I have been encouraging parents in my constituency to tune in and watch the debate. If any are still listening and watching, I think there are a few busy parents who may think that they could have agreed this Bill, written the guidance and got it done and dusted by now.
I would like to speak to some of the amendments, especially those about the timing of the Bill. I will also make some general points raised by the amendments. The enormous costs of school uniforms are of huge concern to my constituents. Owing to covid-19, that is the case even more so now than a year ago when the Bill was first brought forward. More families are now struggling in my constituency and across the country. I know the cost of school uniform myself, as my eldest child started school in 2002 and my youngest is in school for another four years. That has been a lot of years of buying uniform.
In my constituency of Putney, there is an increased need for more affordable school uniforms as we approach the dreaded time in September when people know they have to face that bill. There are now 4,335 people claiming benefits in Putney. That is a 46% increase on only a year ago, and a lot of those people are families. Wandsworth food bank provided 5,770 emergency food supplies to needy families in Wandsworth last year; that is the highest ever number, representing a 78% increase over the last five years. The majority of those people are families who also face this school uniform bill. There is a crucial need to bring forward this legislation as urgently as possible, and that is why amendment 2 has some merit. However, it does not need to be an amendment; the Minister can clear the issue up by telling us the timetable for the Bill in his remarks, to which I look forward.
In the time that I have been paying so much for school uniforms for my own family, I have seen the creeping number and cost of additional items that need to be bought for the uniform. I have seen the inconsistency between schools and school uniform policies, and the incremental use of “my uniform costs more than yours” as a proxy for better school standards and to attract students to some academies. When my youngest child went into year 7 a few years ago, his uniform bill was an eye-watering £468. I then had to top it up with another £200. In that school, the blazer costs between £95 and £115, and it is true that VAT is a component part. I should also say that my 14-year-old is 6 feet tall. I encourage the Minister to take the issue up with the Chancellor, but I do not think it needs to be addressed through amendment 5.
The sums I have mentioned are unaffordable for many families. I support school uniform guidance to ensure that there are fewer branded items and fewer exclusive suppliers that do not put affordability at the top of the list; that good quality, own-brand supermarket choices can be made; and that clothes swaps are easy. These points are mentioned in the amendments, but they can be put into the guidance and legislation; it does not have to be through the amendments.
This Bill is for that mum, who, when I was looking around a local school at an open day, sat down in front of me, looked at the school uniform list, shook her head, said to her son, “We can’t go here” and had to leave the open day. These are the choices being faced by families, and that is why we urgently need to bring in this legislation. The Bill is also for the families that I took on trips in the summer of 2019—when we could go on trips. I sat down with them and talked to the mums, who said they had not been able to afford to go on any other trips with their children that summer because they knew about the bill that was coming up in September. They said they were eating less during the summer months and having to make all their choices according to the fact that that bill was coming up in September. We have seen how quickly the Government can act during this time of covid. I urge them to act fast on this.
Amendment 16, which would mean that the guidance cannot be brought in for the next school year, is contradictory to the amendments that say we should be putting schools in the driving seat and that this should be up to schools. Schools should be able to decide whether they can introduce part or all of the guidance in the next school year, and they should be able to do so from September, when those big bills are looming and more families are struggling.
The Bill is also for governors and parents. It will put them back in the driving seat, able to challenge the school uniform bill. I support the amendments about promoting this guidance, because it needs to be known about. I hope that the legislation will receive Royal Assent very quickly, but parents and governors need to know about the guidance so they understand the powers they will have.
To conclude, as we consider amendments to this crucial Bill, I would like some assurances from the Minister. When—I am sure it is a case of “when”—the Bill is passed, will the guidance be agreed very soon, and will it be promoted to staff, governors and parents? Will branded items be kept to a minimum, and will there be some indication of what constitutes “a minimum” so that it does not just creep up again? Will parents be given a choice of where to buy uniform? How will the guidance ensure the transparency of single supplier agreements and competitiveness of tendering?
Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]
As I outlined in my speech when the Bill was first introduced, it was clear from the cross-party support it attracted that many Members were keen to address the concern that families faced undue financial pressure when buying school uniforms. While there are differing opinions on how this issue should most effectively be addressed, it is important, at the stage the Bill is now at, that all efforts are put into ensuring that the guidance that will be put on a statutory footing works in the interests of all parties involved. My hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) have tabled several amendments, which seek clarity on a number of important issues. I will speak particularly about amendments 4 and 16.
On amendment 4, a range of factors, alongside price, contribute to an effective school uniform policy, including quality, durability, sustainability and availability. It is important, therefore, that the guidance the Department formulates, if it is truly to seek to promote a fair and value-for-money approach to uniform, considers and balances all those considerations.
Over the last year, I have met many specialist school uniform suppliers, in my constituency and across the country, and it is clear that they understand and care about the price pressures their customers face. As a sector, they seek to address those through innovative business models that prioritise sustainability and ethical material sourcing, producing uniforms that are high-quality and long-lasting.
It is imperative that the way this specialised sector works is properly understood in formulating the guidance, so that those sustainable British SMEs are supported. That is why I take issue with the request that we have just heard to demand that different suppliers are available to parents. That is not how a large section of this sector works; nor, in fact, does it ensure value. That is a very important distinction.
Amendment 16 seeks to ensure that the Bill does not apply to the 2021-22 academic year. It is also important that, in the light of the covid-19 pandemic, the guidance is brought in gradually. That will give families, schools and schoolwear providers time to adjust, helping to avoid unnecessary and unintended expense.
If the guidance is brought in too quickly, many families will feel the need to purchase new uniform items before current ones are outgrown, and schools may feel the need to push out a rush for new tenders, having made agreements prior to the Bill being discussed or enacted that might have been drawn up in a different way from that now desired. The schoolwear providers, many of which are family-run businesses on our high streets in small towns and communities, will have to throw away high levels of stocked clothing that they have been unable to sell over the last year, as we have asked them to keep their doors shut during the pandemic.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
We have had a very thorough debate on the amendments, which fall into two categories. The majority cover areas that really ought to be covered as part of the statutory guidance proposed in the Bill. I am sure that the Minister will have heard the contributions in that spirit and will take them into consideration when drawing up the Department’s statutory guidance.
Reasonable points have been made about the importance of consultation and the range of stakeholders who ought to be consulted, and the statutory guidance will be subject to consultation when such issues can be raised. As my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) highlighted, at least one amendment would go against the entire thrust of the Bill and undermine the importance of having any statutory guidance at all.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) mentioned the response of my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale to the amendments, and the degree of sympathy that he has for them. We all know that the passage of a private Member’s Bill into statute is a rare occasion, and particularly when a Bill is brought forward from the Opposition Benches, an inevitable degree of compromise is necessary. In that spirit Her Majesty’s official Opposition have no desire to undermine the huge amount of work that has taken place to get the Bill to this stage. I congratulate all members of the Committee on their work in scrutinising the Bill, and I pay tribute to the Minister and his officials for their work. They put a great deal of time and consideration into these matters, not just on Second Reading and in Committee, but also in discussions with my hon. Friend.
Sitting Fridays can do one of two things. They can be an advertisement for the House of Commons at its best, where Members work on a cross-party basis to solve common problems of interest to our constituents, or they can be an advertisement for the worst of our politics—the game playing, the filibustering, and the attempts to prevent things that have an obvious common-sense value and widespread support from getting into statute. I hope that today will be an advertisement for the good, and for the House of Commons at its best. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale on his work. I am delighted to see him in his place, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on successfully stewarding the Bill to Report and, I hope, shortly on to Third Reading. School uniforms are an important part of establishing an ethos and common identity in a school. They are a shared endeavour and a sense of belonging. School uniforms help to remove the inequalities caused by differences in the prosperity or disadvantage of a pupil’s family, and they help to ensure that schools are disciplined and safe places for students, where it is good to be ambitious, and admirable to be conscientious and hardworking.
For some families, the cost of purchasing school uniforms for growing children can be a financial worry. In 2015, the Government commissioned a cost of school uniforms survey, which found that, after adjusting for inflation and excluding the PE kit, the average cost of a school uniform had decreased since 2007 to £213. While two thirds of parents were happy with the cost of a school uniform and PE kit, nearly one fifth reported that they had suffered financial hardship because of having to buy school uniforms for their children. The Bill, which the Government wholeheartedly support, is designed to ensure that the costs of schools uniforms are reasonable, and that schools secure the best value for parents.
Amendments 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8 relate to the content of the statutory guidance to be issued under the Bill. It is important that such issues are considered in the statutory guidance rather than in primary legislation, as suggested by the amendments. That approach maintains a level of flexibility and responsiveness, so that over time, statutory guidance on uniform costs can be amended and improved. I welcome the way that the hon. Member for Weaver Vale has constructed the Bill.
On amendment 1, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) that every school should ensure that second-hand school uniform is available for parents to acquire. It is, however, important for this to be a matter for statutory guidance, rather than primary legislation, so we can get the details right and schools have some flexibility about how to do this.
On amendment 5, as we know, families already benefit from a zero rate of VAT on clothing designed for children under 14 years old. This is already a significant cost to the Exchequer, costing £2 billion each year in lost revenue. Expanding this to include a wider size of school uniforms would not specifically target low-income families. HMRC already provides guidance on this matter in VAT notice 714. However, my hon. Friend is right to point out that, having left the European Union, we are now free to make these changes if we wish, and I am sure the Chancellor of Exchequer will have heard his comments.
On amendment 8, we want to see schools providing clear information to parents about their uniform policies, but we consider that this is a matter for the statutory guidance to enable us to ensure that these requirements are flexible and responsive, rather than placing a requirement to publish in the Bill. My hon. Friend raised the issue of schools that do not have a school uniform policy. The current non-statutory guidance says:
“The Department strongly encourages schools to have a uniform as it can play a valuable role in contributing to the ethos of a school and setting an appropriate tone.”
That is in the current non-statutory guidance, so I will take my hon. Friend’s point in his speech as an exhortation to include that sentence or something similar in the statutory guidance, which we continue to work on.
On amendment 6, the crux of the phrasing in the Bill—“must have regard to”—is that schools must comply with the guidance unless they have a good reason for departing from it. Put simply, it means that schools cannot ignore this guidance. This amendment would in effect mean that schools would be able to disregard the guidance whenever they wished, which is the opposite of the intention behind the principal tenet of the Bill.
On amendment 7, it is important that the principles that will be set out in the statutory guidance on the costs aspects of uniform are considered by schools when they are developing or changing their uniform policies so that they are embedded right from the start. This amendment would mean that schools would not have to have regard to key factors that Members have raised as being crucial to the cost of a uniform when developing such a policy. This would severely undermine the reasons for introducing statutory guidance, as it would in effect mean that the application of the guidance would be limited and unlikely to be effective in keeping costs down.
On amendment 9, the Government will want to update the guidance as and when necessary, and as circumstances require it. The Government want the new statutory guidance to have time to bed in once issued and would not want to be looking to make arbitrary or unnecessary changes, but placing arbitrary restrictions on the Government’s ability to make changes to the guidance, even if schools were to make it clear that revisions would be welcome, would prevent us from being responsive to the needs of parents and schools, and risk schools being required to have regard to guidance that was out of date.
Amendments 10 to 14 seek to disapply certain types of school from the Bill. There is no good reason to treat these schools differently. For example, not all special schools and alternative provision schools have a school uniform, and that is appropriate. However, for those that do, it is important that this Bill applies to them, as well as to mainstream schools, to ensure that they also consider value for money for parents when setting their policy.
On amendment 15, I do not consider it appropriate to list selected external bodies to be consulted in primary legislation, but as I said in Committee, I am committed to engaging with representatives of schools, parents and other interested parties as we draft the statutory guidance.
On amendment 2, we are progressing well with the changes to the draft statutory guidance. We will reflect on the comments made during this debate and the debates in Committee as the Bill progresses through this House as we draft the statutory guidance. That includes the comments made by all hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), as well as, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and other hon. Friends and hon. Members who have spoken in this debate.
Sir Christopher Chope
What my right hon. Friend has said is delightfully vague. Why can he not be more specific? Who is controlling him? Surely he is in charge of his Department and can tell us when this statutory guidance will be issued—or perhaps even issued in draft. I am sure that Members in the other place would like to have a draft of the statutory guidance before them so that they can consider these issues. He has said that many of my amendments should be incorporated in the statutory guidance, so let us see the statutory guidance.
Nick Gibb
If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I said that I would reflect on the comments he has made in this debate. Of course, all comments made during the passage of this Bill will be taken into account as we consider the drafting of this statutory guidance. I will be consulting, as I have been, interested parties to this debate. What I do not want to do is delay the passage of the Bill through the other place while we wait for the statutory guidance to be finalised. It is important that we get the Bill on to the statute book before the Session ends. Given all that I have said in response to the amendments, I hope that my hon. Friend will not wish to press his amendments to a Division.
Sir Christopher Chope
I thank all those people who have participated in this debate, where we have had a good discussion about the Bill. I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), on the Opposition Front Bench, is agreeing with that, although he did not make any reference in his short speech to any of the points I have made in support of the amendments.
My right hon. Friend the Minister is basically saying, “We are entering upon a period of reflection.” Or at least he is. May I suggest, with the greatest of respect, that there has been a very long period in which to reflect already? The Government first signposted the intention to deal with this issue in a statutory way in 2015. It was then the subject of various commitments given in the run-up to the last general election. Then we had the Second Reading and Committee stage—that was in September. My right hon. Friend said that he did not think we should wait for the statutory guidance before making further progress. I do not know whether he misunderstood or misheard what I was saying. I was making a suggestion about the draft statutory guidance. Obviously, if he is consulting about statutory guidance, he must be consulting on a draft of it. If that is the case, why are Members of this House not able to see that draft? In particular, why is he going to deprive Members of the other place of being able to see it? The normal conduct of proceedings in this House is that when statutory guidance is under consideration, the Government will, if at all possible, present the House with a draft of it. My right hon. Friend seems, in his own charming way—I am not charmed by this or misled, because I can see what he is trying to do—to be avoiding a situation in which there can be any debate about the draft statutory guidance. The very reasonable questions put during this debate, including by my new friend the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), show that there is an importance of timing here; people need to have some certainty about the timing and intentions. Is the Minister planning for the statutory guidance to take effect in this coming academic year—yes or no? I may not like the answer he gives, but surely he can tell us what his intentions are, or is he still further reflecting upon it? How much more information does he need before he can reach a conclusion to his reflections?
The Minister grouped a whole lot of my amendments together. It is all very well for him to say that they relate to content and will be considered with the statutory guidance, but he is not prepared to stop teasing us about the timing and content of that statutory guidance. I am afraid that that makes me extremely disappointed, if not nervous, about what is being cooked up and will be sprung upon unsuspecting governors, parents and suppliers of school uniforms before we know what has happened. Perhaps we can come back to this on Third Reading, but the fact that the Minister is unwilling to expand at all upon those points is disappointing.
I also hoped the Minister would give an undertaking that, because of his commitment and the Government’s commitment to minimising the avoidable costs of school uniform, the Government would bring forward legislation to remove value added tax on school uniforms. That would be a really good move, and strong support for that proposition has emerged in this debate and on Second Reading. I hope that, as a result of that, when we get to the new Session of Parliament, someone who is successful in the private Members’ Bills ballot—perhaps with encouragement from the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), if he is unsuccessful on the second occasion in the ballot—will take up the cudgels of a short Bill to remove VAT from school uniforms. I think that that would be an extremely popular Bill. I have been in the House for some time, and I have never had the opportunity of taking forward a Bill that was successful in the ballot, but if I were to be successful in the ballot, that might well be at the top of my priority list, because I think it would make a difference. Frankly, it would make a much bigger difference than what will be contained in this statutory guidance.
I am going to be blunt: I am disappointed with the Minister’s response, and I will leave it at that. In terms of the other contributions made in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) is somewhat of a national expert on this. He had a big feature in the Daily Express and perhaps other great organs, setting out his support for the Bill but also his concerns that we should not have unintended consequences flowing from it. His point about the need for availability, as well as durability, sustainability and ethical sourcing, was very well made. He also pointed out—again, the Minister did not respond to this—that, as a result of the covid nightmare, many suppliers of school uniforms have built up stocks that they will want to be able to use rather than have to put on the scrapheap. I am grateful for his contribution, and I am disappointed that the Minister did not specifically address it.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Putney for supporting my views on the VAT issue. As she rightly said, there would be no need for amendment 2 if the Minister made a commitment at the Dispatch Box.
Sir Christopher Chope
She is nodding her head, but of course we did not get that commitment.
Sir Christopher Chope
She is now shaking her head to agree that we did not get that commitment from the Dispatch Box. I do not know—she almost tempts me to say that we should divide the House on amendment 2. Perhaps she would like to join me in being a Teller if that is the situation.
Sir Christopher Chope
She is shaking her head again. Perhaps we can come back to that issue when we discuss this matter further on Third Reading.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) gave a typically erudite analysis of the Bill. I am grateful for his support for my amendments and the amendments from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). It was an exemplary performance by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, because he did not engage in tedious repetition, or any repetition, but highlighted the gaps I had left in the arguments I was putting forward in support of my amendments. If I had been able to speak at greater length on those amendments, I would have wished to include in my remarks the additional comments that my hon. Friend incorporated.
The extra added value that my hon. Friend brought to the debate was his experience as the chair of the former all-party parliamentary group for state boarding schools, and in that capacity he brought some expertise to bear as to why it is ridiculous to include within these provisions the special schools to which he referred. He also made a point that I had omitted from my opening remarks about the gap in the evidence relating to the actual costs of school uniforms at the moment. He said that the Children’s Society’s estimates were based on questionable evidence. I am not sure whether, given the position we are at in relation to the Bill, that makes too much difference. The Children’s Society says that the costs are higher than the Government say. The Minister reminded us that the costs of school uniforms, excluding PE gear, had fallen between 2007 and 2015, which shows that it is a pretty competitive market.
In so far as the Bill was justified on the basis of dubious material from the Children’s Society, I am disappointed, because to produce questionable evidence is to undermine the case. We know that there are people for whom the current cost of school uniforms are a significant burden, which is why there is so much support for the Bill, but it does not help anybody’s cause for the issue to be exaggerated and for the sums involved to be inflated. That is why it is all the more important—I am grateful to the Minister for saying that he is supportive of the idea—that we enable schools to be able to sell second-hand uniforms, thereby reducing the cost burden on pupils.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) said that one child in 20 is sent home—I am not sure whether she was talking about schools in general or one particular school in her constituency—for not wearing the right uniform, or any uniform. She wanted constraints placed on the ability of schools to enforce school uniform policies. There is no point in having a school uniform policy unless it is consistently enforced. Ultimately, the final sanction that a school has for a pupil who does not comply with the school uniform requirements is to send them home, in the hope that they will return the following day properly dressed and equipped. As Dicey said, there is no point in having a command without a sanction, and that applies in this case, and that is my response to what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) had to say.
Mike Amesbury
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Friday 13 March 2020, a year ago tomorrow, turned out to be rather a lucky day for me: an opportunity to help thousands of children, parents and carers across our nation to bring down the cost of school uniforms by means of this Bill. The world around us was changing; it was 10 days before we entered the first lockdown, and I could not have imagined on that day that it would take a whole year to get to Second Reading, Committee, Report and now Third Reading—and hopefully beyond.
I thank everyone who has helped on this journey and ensured that today’s sitting happened. I am grateful for everybody’s efforts, and I know that families across England are, too. I know that because, despite the delay in getting to this stage and the many school closures that our children have had to endure, families have still been getting in touch with me, continuing to raise the impact that these costs have on them, and telling me how the Bill will affect them. It will really make a difference.
Of course, the Bill has become more important than ever since the last time we discussed it in the Chamber. The economic impact of this pandemic is hitting families hard. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, before the pandemic 17% of low-income families reported that they were finding things difficult financially. By December, that number had risen to 76%.
A parent’s choice of school for their child should not be based on their ability to afford the uniform, but I am afraid the evidence compiled by The Children’s Society, and demonstrated throughout the journey of the Bill, highlights that that is the case. That is simply not acceptable. Some hon. Members have disputed the figures provided by The Children’s Society, but they were real families’ experiences: 1,000 families were surveyed in 2020, and the average cost of a secondary uniform was £337. For primary schools, it was £315. That is their experience, although people can certainly dispute it.
A vital part of this guidance will be ensuring that choice and availability for parents are extended, while opening up competition to all uniform suppliers—an opportunity welcomed by many manufacturers up and down the country. If a family simply cannot afford to keep up with uniform costs, it is ultimately the child’s education that suffers.
We heard on Report from MPs across the political divide of cases where children have been sent home or punished where they have been unable to replace the required item of school uniform, or have faced bullying from other students. That indignity needs to stop. The practice of branding everything a child wears as part of a school uniform must be curtailed. Branded facemasks have now been added to branded socks, blazers, ties, skirts, caps, bags, coats and much more. I hope that the statutory guidance will minimise that.
All families should benefit from the Bill, and people should not miss out because of the type of school they attend. Thus, it is important in building the new guidance that it is there to benefit every school, not excluding schools of certain types. It is important that the guidance is issued as soon as possible, so that schools have time to adapt uniform policies before it comes into force. Picking up on a point made earlier on Report by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), I would hope that the guidance would be in place by 2021-22.
This campaign is not new; children, and The Children’s Society, have been campaigning since 2014 to make this happen. Today is a real chance to make it happen. Let us all work together—let us make it happen.
Nick Gibb
May I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on progressing his private Member’s Bill to this stage? I look forward to continuing to work with him on this important issue. I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), for Shipley (Philip Davies), for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer).
Sir Christopher Chope
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not rise in my place to speak on Third Reading because I understood that, as I was on the call list, I would be called, but the Minister is after me on the call list.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Well, that is an interesting point of order. I must say to the hon. Gentleman that the order of the call list is a matter for me. Yes, things are written down and these are unusual proceedings, but the order in which Members are called to speak is still a matter for the Chair. He will of course have his turn in due course.
Nick Gibb
I also thank the hon. Members for Putney (Fleur Anderson) and for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy).
Uniform helps to promote the ethos of a school and set an appropriate tone. Moreover, by creating a common identity among pupils, a school uniform can act as a social leveller. The Bill will protect and reinforce that role.
I know that many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, will want to know the intended contents of the statutory guidance, so I will take this opportunity to set out briefly our proposed approach to the key issues raised in the debate. In developing and implementing their school uniform policy, schools should consider the total cost of all items of uniform or clothing that parents will need to provide while the pupil is at the school.
On the question of branded items, the current non-statutory guidance states that compulsory branded items should be kept to a minimum. We plan to keep that approach in the statutory guidance and, additionally, specify that their use should be limited to low-cost or long-lasting items. We will provide guidance about ways to reap the benefits of a branded item while also keeping costs low. The Government believe that this approach will set a clear expectation on schools not to overuse branded items, while allowing schools to take sensible decisions in their own contexts.
On sole-supplier arrangements, schools should be able to demonstrate that they have obtained best value for money in their supply arrangements, but we do not intend to ban sole-supplier contracts. To ensure that there is competition and transparency, we want schools to tender their school uniform contracts regularly—at least every five years. To support schools to carry out good tenders, we will provide information on the key areas to consider when tendering their uniform contracts. The Bill will not punish good suppliers; far from it. Their emphasis on quality and value for money will be rewarded as standards across the industry increase due to competition.
I believe that second-hand uniform can play a valuable role in keeping costs reasonable for all parents, and I know that many Members share that view. I would like every school to ensure that arrangements are in place to make second-hand school uniform available for parents to acquire. I myself had a second-hand rugby shirt at school, and I can confirm that when I grew out of it, after a few years, it remained in the same pristine condition it had been in when my parents purchased it.
Sir Christopher Chope
I will resist the temptation to comment on the Minister’s last point, but he has made an important statement about second-hand uniform. Will there be a requirement in the statutory guidance for schools to provide facilities for the sale and exchange of second-hand uniform?
Nick Gibb
The statutory guidance will of course refer to the importance of there being facilities for parents to be able to acquire second-hand uniform.
It is my intention to engage with representatives of schools, parents and other interested parties in drafting and finalising the statutory guidance. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and the hon. Member for Putney asked about the timing of the implementation of the guidance. We want schools to implement changes in a timely and considered manner to ensure that they work effectively, but we would want to make sure that in doing so parents do not incur additional costs from sudden uniform changes. We will therefore set out clearly in the statutory guidance when we expect schools to implement the requirements. I can commit that schools will not be required to make sudden changes to their uniform policy for September 2021.
The Bill will help many families throughout the country who may struggle to afford a school uniform, so the Government support it, and I urge all Members of the House to support its Third Reading.
Wes Streeting
We have had a great debate this morning and into this afternoon, and I am delighted that it looks as though the Bill will be passed and will hopefully continue its passage on to the statute book.
I strongly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on his leadership in bringing the Bill forward. I thank the Minister and his Department for their engagement with the Bill, and I am grateful for the engagement of so many others, particularly the Children’s Society, which has provided a strong bedrock of research that demonstrates why the Bill is needed and has engaged constructively throughout to make the Bill possible. The Schoolwear Association and school uniform manufacturers have also engaged constructively and made some important points about the value of domestic supply chains, of ethically produced and sourced products, and of good-quality, durable products. We should not lose sight of that.
School uniforms ought to be the great social leveller. Those of us who remember the struggles that our parents had affording uniforms when we grew up, and who looked ahead to non-uniform days with trepidation rather than rather than excitement because of the pressure of having the right trainers, the right clothes and the right brands, understand why school uniforms are so important from a social justice perspective. It is not just about the importance of a school’s ethos and identity—points made very well by the Minister.
Let us get the Bill passed and make progress, and let today be an advertisement to people right across the country about the good that this House and our politics can do when people come together in common cause.
Andrew Lewer [V]
In the first debate on this Bill, which was only a year ago but, for obvious reasons, feels like a lifetime ago, there was much discussion among many Members, ranging across not only their clearly lasting memories of school uniform but the practicalities, and a general view that uniforms play a significant and valued role in educational settings.
Many of us are proud of the schools that we attended, and this sense of school pride starts with a school’s uniform, which acts as an identifier but also as a leveller. That levelling factor seems to have resonated especially strongly with the Minister and throughout the discussions that have taken place on and offline, in all senses. A sense of collective identity is important in helping children to belong, but it also helps to suppress peer pressure in respect of what children wear while on school grounds, so that we do not end up with individuals being picked on for the brand of clothing they wear. At a time of increased pressure on young people’s mental health, for very obvious reasons, that represents an unnecessary worry.
All that is why sole supplier arrangements and schoolwear suppliers are a very welcome part of the landscape and should be protected for numerous reasons that relate to that important word: values. There are the school’s values and the disciplinary advantages of avoiding the “My black trousers are Gucci; yours are from Tesco’s” situation that comes from vaguer uniform requirements—which, ironically, are often championed by those seeking lower costs for parents. There are the values of supply chains and ethical sourcing—we have heard about China, but that applies to other places, too. And there is the starting point of the Bill: value for money. A well-made £20 pair of trousers that lasts three times as long as a £10 pair is better for parents’ pockets—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) was good enough to quote me saying something similar in the debate a year ago.
Although it is late in the progress of the Bill to rake this up again, I will just mention the value for money of uniform, which was demonstrated very clearly by the very high-quality research published by the Schoolwear Association, which set right some other less well- based research that came up with much higher figures. There is also an element of the cultural value of the British education system, which is exemplified by the wearing of school uniforms—something that should be celebrated and is replicated by many schools across the world. I can think of many British overseas schools that take pride in the wearing of uniforms, which highlights the importance the British education system is given abroad.
I am grateful to the Minister for his acknowledgment on Second Reading that single supplier contracts are valuable in ensuring year-round supply of uniform, availability of the full range of sizes, and, with all items being of the same colour and design, uniformity among pupils. I will, however, be seeking assurances from the Minister that these contracts will be explicitly protected. He has touched on this already with his hints about the guidance. As he is aware, competition on the price of school uniform happens when those contracts go out to tender, and companies compete against one another to produce an attractive bid. My concern is that this process is misunderstood. If schools work with more than one retailer, this competition is lost. Sometimes the competitive element is the tender between the school and the supplier, not between the parent direct and the suppliers. That is not always sufficiently understood. Not understanding it can mean that purchasing power is damaged for retailers, which, in turn, raises prices for customers.
I did have some grave concerns about this Bill and the ramifications that could have arisen from it in its original form. I want to emphasise to the Government that they must match their rhetoric with the action that they take in terms of being a deregulating Government, cutting red tape and not over-centralising. As some Members know, I was far from convinced that the Bill fitted very well into that expressed ethos and, indeed, used it as an example of the opposite in other policy speeches and contexts. Furthermore, the ethos of a school and what it stands for must come chiefly through the school’s own culture and leadership and the attitudes of school leaders, teachers, governors and parents. Ideally, it should not be imposed from a great Whitehall height.
In conclusion, I am glad to say that the Minister has been forthcoming and helpful throughout this process—long though it has been. Throughout the course of discussions in Committee early last year, he listened to the concerns that I and other Members raised and I thank him for that. I especially thank him for what he said in this very debate just now. I am now of the opinion that, aside from that much wider philosophical over-regulatory point, some potentially damaging worries about the Bill have been either wholly allayed or diminished. That has been helped by the added reassurances that we have received today. I will continue to reference them as that guidance is consulted on to ensure that it does not lead to excessive micro-management.
Sir Christopher Chope
It is a pleasure to speak on Third Reading. I am glad that the Minister was able to respond so quickly during his period of reflection. It was a period of reflection that lasted from the end of Report to the beginning of Third Reading. In those few moments of reflection, he was able, at a stroke, to satisfy some of the concerns that had been expressed on Report. Essentially, he has accepted, from what he said, my amendment 16. That means that schools will know that they will not be burdened by changes as a result of this Bill, which would impinge on their freedoms in the forthcoming school year starting this September. That was a very important statement and I appreciate the fact that my right hon. Friend made that today, so that the schools and their governing bodies and all the other people involved in this industry can act accordingly as a result. It was also implicit in what he said that the period of waiting, which has been going on since 2015, is now coming to an end and that people can prepare to implement this new statutory guidance. What he described as the intended content of that guidance is spot on and the schools should indeed consider the total costs of all items, including how long they will last and the quality to which they are produced. That should also apply to compulsory branded items.
As far as the sole supplier provisions are concerned, the Minister’s decision not to outlaw such agreements again accords with common sense. Contracts should be the subject of tender every five years—I think that seems a reasonable compromise, which fits in with commercial practice. He is not going to punish good suppliers, he will promote the benefits of second-hand uniform, and he is not going to go down the prescriptive route of the Welsh Labour Government, which I am sure will be a matter of great relief.
So there is a lot to celebrate. That is not a word I often use in the context of legislation that is supported by the Government, but there is a lot to celebrate in the Bill and the considered way in which it sounds as though the Minister will respond. I have just listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), who is a great expert on this, and if his worst fears have been allayed, I am sure that the worst fears of lots of other people will likewise have been allayed by what is in the Bill. Let all the people who are going to benefit from the Bill move forward and I encourage them, as they appreciate what is happening in relation to the forthcoming statutory guidance, to pressurise their Members of Parliament to campaign on the issue of VAT on school uniforms.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniform) Bill
Friday 12th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 March 2021 - (12 Mar 2021)
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Friday 19th March 2021
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 176(a) Amendment for Committee - (19 Mar 2021)
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I pay tribute to my honourable friend Mike Amesbury for steering the Bill through the Commons unscathed and with such strong cross-party and, indeed, government support. I also pay tribute to the Children’s Society and the children and parents with whom it has worked for their pivotal role, reflecting the impetus provided by the Children’s Commission on Poverty. I am grateful to the Government Whips for making this Second Reading possible and to the Minister for meeting with me at short notice.
This is a modest Bill, which simply imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance, in place of the current voluntary guidance, on cost aspects of school uniforms. It is important to emphasise at the outset that it is in no way anti-school uniform; the strong support in the Commons from MPs across the House who expressed their belief in uniforms bears testimony to that. In its focus on affordability and value for money, the Bill, through statutory guidance, strengthens the case for uniforms, as there is no better recruiting agent against uniforms than the inability of too many parents to afford them. This is particularly timely, as we know from a wide range of research that many families are really struggling a year into the pandemic.
There is some disagreement as to the actual average cost of uniforms, which may well be reflected in briefings received. This is in part a question of different methodologies, but I hope that we will not get hung up on these differences. What matters is this, to quote Christopher Chope MP, one of the Bill’s more critical interrogators:
“We know that there are people for whom the current cost of school uniforms are a significant burden”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/21; col. 1178.]
This Bill aims to reduce that burden, described as “crippling” by one parent in CPAG’s Cost of the School Day project, which highlighted the cost of compulsory branded items in particular.
The Competition and Markets Authority has twice drawn attention to school uniform costs, most recently in a 2019 letter to the Education Secretary, which concluded that statutory guidance would be
“the simplest and most direct way of delivering change.”
Research by the Children’s Society, conducted before the pandemic, shows that many parents struggle to afford the costs of school uniforms. Its survey of 1,000 parents found that one in five families from lower-income backgrounds cut back on food and other essentials because of uniform costs. Nearly sone in five reported borrowing money from someone else because of these costs. Nearly a quarter said that the cost of the school uniform had meant that their child had worn ill-fitting, unclean or incorrect uniform.
The research also documented some of the damaging consequences for children. Wearing the wrong uniform can lead to children being bullied, feeling left out or even being sent home from school, which can mean them missing out on education or on fully participating in school life, because their parents cannot afford to buy specific uniform items. One parent reported:
“My daughter has requested I write a letter saying she is injured in order to miss PE as she had lost her socks and I couldn’t afford to replace them (so I had asked her to tell the teacher and ask if she could borrow some from lost property). My daughter would rather have skipped PE (which she enjoys) than possibly be overheard by one of her peers and risk the embarrassment of being poor.”
CPAG’s research found that children had been picked on and laughed at. I know from my own work on poverty how devastating the shame it engenders can be, particularly for children.
At Third Reading in the Commons, the Minister made clear his
“intention to engage with representatives of schools, parents and other interested parties”,
which I understand rightly includes the Children’s Society,
“in drafting and finalising the statutory guidance.”—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/21; col. 1181.]
He gave some indication of the lines being developed therein. I look to the Minister to do the same today and would welcome an assurance that any future iterations of the guidance will be subject to similar consultation.
I also press the Minister on timing, as it is vital that the consultation be completed within a specific timeframe, so that the guidance can be implemented at the earliest possible date. The Act is due to come into force two months after the day on which it is passed. We need the guidance to come into effect for this September, so that parents can begin to benefit from the new policy as soon as possible. That said, I realise that this could create difficulties. In the Commons, the Minister advised that the guidance would not require schools to drastically change policy this September. Could the Minister clarify what this means, please?
I make it clear that introduction of the statutory guidance in time for the new school year should not mean an overnight overhaul of uniform policies that could see existing items suddenly in breach of the new policies. Rather, I believe that implementing the guidance from September, but allowing a suitable grace period, where voluntary practice is not already followed, should allow time to adapt to the changes that so many families desperately need.
I was delighted to be asked to sponsor the Bill in your Lordships’ House because, being aware of the burden created for parents on low incomes by costly school uniforms, I have from time to time asked what happened to the Government’s 2015 commitment to put the school uniform guidance on a statutory footing. The response has always been that they had to wait for a suitable legislative opportunity. Finally, over five years later, this Bill provides such an opportunity and it is good to work with the Government in trying to ensure that it reaches the statute book.
At the risk of sounding like a government Minister, I urge noble Lords to resist any temptation to improve the Bill through amendments. I am sure that it could be improved but, if it were, we would risk losing it altogether, because time is so tight before the end of this Session. Instead, I encourage noble Lords to press the Minister for such assurances on the record as we might need to ensure that the guidance is all that we want it to be. The debates in the Commons were very positive and I am sure that they will be in this House also. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas (Con) [V]
My Lords, I declare an interest as the editor of the Good Schools Guide. I thoroughly support this Bill and congratulate the noble Baroness on having been chosen to bring it through this House. I also thoroughly support school uniforms. As doubtlessly many others will say, they are a leveller, they stop competition among children to show their parents’ wealth through choice of uniform items, they give a strong identity to the school and they help children to realise that a different set of rules—a different way of doing things—applies within school. As long as the cost is reasonable and the quality is good, they should absolutely be supported.
The originator of the Bill, and the Government, are getting things right. A second-hand shop is important, specification is important and a competitive process for finding a supplier is important. All that I ask is that the DfE commits that, should a major revision of guidance be proposed in the future, it will conduct a thorough assessment of the impacts, economic and otherwise, on children, parents, schools and uniform suppliers before bringing it in. We have an excellent system in this country for providing school uniform. We must be sure that the people involved have a prosperous and effective future in front of them.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, this sensible and small Bill had an easy ride through the Commons and hopefully will through this House, too. The number of speakers seems overkill for one small cause; it is difficult to see how 21 speakers will each have different things to say about the Bill, but I am quite sure that your Lordships will find a way.
When I was a teacher, I was hugely supportive of school uniforms. They gave cohesion to the school and meant that there was no competition for who was wearing the most expensive clothes. Curiously, when I taught in Germany, where school uniforms seemed not to exist, the youngsters with the wealthiest parents aimed to look the scruffiest—at least, the boys did. Where you knew that the father was an extremely well-paid surgeon or lawyer, the lad would arrive at school looking like something that the cat had brought in.
One of my daughters, aged eight, had a year at a school with no uniform. The time spent every morning discussing what was and was not appropriate for her to wear to school was quite draining. I was relieved when her next school had a uniform and we could dispense with the pre-school fashion ritual. The key factor must be cost. These days, most state schools opt for items easily bought at high street shops as cheaply as possible, given that children sometimes grow surprisingly quickly.
I really felt for what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said. I was horrified to read the estimate that nearly half a million children have been sent home from school because the costs meant that they were wearing incorrect uniform. This cannot be right. Schools should be encouraged to be understanding, even as they wish to uphold standards and pride in the school. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, it is valuable if schools have second-hand shops for uniforms and/or a hardship fund, but uniforms will often be outgrown before they are outworn and thrift shops for disadvantaged children could be a lifesaver. Might this be at least in guidance, if not on the face of the Bill?
Why does the proposed new Section 1(5)(e) read,
“a pupil referral unit not established in a hospital”?
I taught in a hospital school many years ago. Many of the pupils are not there for long, so uniform for the hospital school would not make sense, but would allowing them to wear the uniform of the school that they had left perhaps encourage a learning culture? I was there to teach a stick-like, very bright anorexic girl, but some of the other pupils were young thugs, exceedingly threatening and ill-disciplined. Might their behaviour have been tempered by school uniforms? Uniforms are helpful in ensuring the community aspect of a school—the belonging and the being part of a team. They are valued by teachers, parents and pupils. I fully support the Bill and wish it a speedy passage, hopefully before the start of the next school year, as we heard, although earlier would be even better.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of a number of all-party parliamentary groups concerned with the welfare of children. I will not spend time on the cornerstone merits of the Bill, except to say that I completely associate myself with the remarks made by noble Lords on all sides of this House in support of the measure. The Bill provides the potential for high-quality uniforms at an affordable price for all parents. The points about the advantages of uniform have been well made. Uniforms serve a central and important function in education. They create a sense of belonging, pride, consistency, focus and personal discipline. Above all, as has been said, they are levellers.
I know from a lifetime in sport the excitement and the cohesive and levelling effect that receiving a well-designed kit can bring to a school or an Olympic team, but we must keep the cost of school uniform to a minimum, to ensure that it acts as a leveller without shifting difficult and often soul-destroying decisions into homes for those facing unenviable financial choices at the beginning of a new school year. While school uniforms help to remove the inequalities caused by differences, the costs can place the same families who benefit at the disadvantage of tough financial decisions behind closed doors. School uniform grants should be available for those most in need of support.
Physical education and sport is one of my major interests, and in the context of the Bill we are still not in a situation where sufficient consideration is given to the design of what I would term inclusive and acceptable PE kit for girls in schools. Today I seek just one assurance from my noble friend the Minister in this context: to take the proposal by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, further.
The year 2020 will be remembered in years to come as much for Covid as for being a transition year for transformation in the digital world, with online communication matched by a leap forward in online product and service provision. As we enter a new decade, we are starting to see previously hyped digital capabilities beginning to reshape the way in which we experience the world as both individuals and organisations, and what the implications could be for business.
I encourage the Government to support the Bill by placing their technical experts at the heart of the consultation exercise. Why? Because critical to many parents are the second-hand shops, many of which today will seem Victorian in their appearance to future generations. User-generated content and better service can all be integrated into modern-day versions of online second-hand shops. Specific families can be prioritised by the school. Families should have immediate access to all uniform that comes on to the secondary market from a well-designed facility allowing online access and specific systems for the school to communicate directly with, for example, those families who do not have access to IT or are in financial hardship.
The Bill is welcome and important. I hope it now makes rapid progress towards enactment.
Lord Hain (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I praise my noble friend Lady Lister, not just for moving the Bill but for her fantastic social policy work over decades. Nearly one-quarter of parents say that the cost of a school uniform means that their child has worn ill-fitting, unclean or incorrect uniform, leading to cases of bullying, feeling left out or even being excluded from school through no fault of their own. It has been estimated that nearly half a million children have been sent home from school because the costs involved meant they were wearing incorrect uniform.
I congratulate the Labour Welsh Government on introducing in 2018 their pupil development grant access funding to help families cover the costs of school uniforms, sports kit and IT equipment, as well as equipment for activities outside school, including sports clubs and trips for outside learning. That funding goes directly to the families who need it most. The Welsh Government introduced new statutory guidance in 2019, providing advice for governing bodies and head teachers on issues relating to school uniform policy. Governing bodies are expected to consider ways of keeping down the costs of uniforms, which could include stipulating basic items and colours but not styles, meaning that items could be bought from more than one outlet. Schools are also expected to consider whether school logos are strictly necessary and if they should apply to just one item of uniform or be provided free of charge. I ask the Minister to look carefully at this admirable Welsh initiative.
However, the truth is that even if the Bill passes, as I hope it will, school uniforms will still be an unaffordable expense for too many. Uniform dress codes often involve a badge, sweatshirt and dark trousers and, typically, shirts, ties, blazers and PE kits, indoor and out, all branded and often available from only a single supplier. In some areas, more than half of children live in poverty, the number rising year on year, and that is before the terrible impact of Covid-19. In such areas, as many as one-fifth of children have been sent home for wearing incorrect uniform as a result of being unable to afford the uniform specified by the school. In some cases, children miss school altogether because either they or their parents feel ashamed of the condition of the uniform that they could not afford. Tragically, too many families wanting their children to go on school trips have to choose between those trips and either feeding them properly or paying for uniforms.
We have to make guidance on affordable uniforms a statutory duty, as it is in Wales. I therefore ask the Government to provide generous funding to implement the Bill and speed it to Royal Assent.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hain. I very much agree with him about the dangers of single-supplier contracts. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on championing this legislation in your Lordships’ House—she is a doughty campaigner, as I know—and I congratulate the honourable Member for Weaver Vale in the other place.
This is a sensible piece of legislation. I am very pro-school-uniform; it is a great leveller at school, properly adopted, and it lends an individual school identity and esprit de corps. These are very laudable matters.
The Bill is supportive of school uniform. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to issue statutory guidance on the cost aspects of school uniform in England. I certainly do not intend to table an amendment but I ask in passing why private schools are not covered in this legislation. I am sure I will be given some technical reason why they cannot be covered but I am not sure I would be convinced by that. There are, after all, scholarship pupils at private schools some of whose parents will struggle with the cost, and I cannot see why they should be exempted from this law.
I also look forward to my noble friend the Minister saying something about keeping compulsory branded items to a minimum and restricting single-supplier contracts, which should be limited. We are a party that believes in competition, and surely sweetheart deals run counter to that unless there is some special justification. I can see that on occasion there may be, but I look forward to hearing how they provide real value for money on occasion. I also recognise that many—indeed, most—school suppliers do an excellent job.
As I say, this is a welcome measure that will help to end the unacceptable position of some children being unhappy going to school because their parents are unable to afford the correct items, with fresh items often needed year after year. I too strongly support second-hand shops; they are appropriate not just because of the cost aspect but because of cutting down on waste, provided of course that we are able to do that in a Covid-secure way.
I support the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, when she says that the statutory guidance should be issued sooner rather than later. In the other place the Government were somewhat opaque on that important question. I appreciate that we may not be able to give a precise date but I hope we are able to bring this in by September and have some effect on school uniform for the next school year. That would be very desirable.
I strongly welcome the Bill and the Government’s sensible response.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB) [V]
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and I agree with everything that he said. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for introducing the Bill with such feeling. It is an important Bill, albeit a small one, because the happiness of so many children and their families rests upon it.
I well remember, and it is a long time ago now, the trauma of having to get my school uniform for the new grammar school that I was to attend. There was a sole supplier, and it was a major hit to family finances. Beyond that, it was also traumatic to have to purchase a garment known as a gym romper, the most ungainly imaginable piece of clothing, which was not only unflattering but deeply unsuitable for the gym lessons for which it was intended—and of course it was expensive, being from a sole supplier. I cannot see why most items of school uniform should not come from the high street, where we have extraordinarily competitive prices now, and I hope they will continue to be so.
I think school uniform serves a very useful purpose. It is a leveller, as others have said, although there will always be those children who find a way of customising their outfits. Of course, it is also said that school uniform gives children an identity with their particular school and that will not be achieved if everyone is dressed from the high street, but surely one or two items of clothing would be sufficient to do that. I would have thought that a badge and tie, which could perhaps be commissioned by the school itself and sold by the school, were enough to enable a blazer to be turned into a distinctive garment to give the children the identity that is required.
I am uncomfortable with the idea of sole suppliers. As the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said, it really goes against the ethos of competition which we try to stimulate. I understand that there are in our high street retailers which depend on being sole suppliers to local schools and I have a degree of sympathy for them, but they cannot expect to have a sinecure for life. I therefore hope that when the Government come up with their guidance, they will be firm that these sole suppliers have to be phased out. On that note, I thank the House.
Baroness Altmann (Con) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on listening to the importance of these measures and on accelerating the Bill, which has already passed through the Commons, through our House. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who may not realise that her work at the Child Poverty Action Group, in the late 1970s, inspired me when I was working on pensioner poverty for my PhD. She was somebody I looked up to then in policy terms, and I still do.
I also congratulate the Children’s Society on the work it has done, including pointing out that one in 10 families get into debt and one in eight cut back on food and essentials because of the cost of school uniform. The Children’s Commission on Poverty has explained that this can be a really damaging factor in families. It is time that we had legislation because the non-statutory guidance has clearly not been sufficient to address this issue.
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and my noble friend Lord Bourne, whose comments I fully associate myself with. Affordability and value for money are vital for children, as well as parents. I recall how my own parents struggled with the cost of our uniform, which was available only from a monopoly supplier. There was no second-hand supply, and I am delighted that there have been recent moves for second-hand uniform. I am, however, in favour of uniform. It promotes inclusion and pride in belonging to a community, but if affordability is not addressed it can breed stigmatisation and marginalisation as well. The uniform may be pristine when new but if it needs replacing and parents cannot afford to do so, again, the child will suffer.
I welcome the Bill. I hope and expect that it will be accelerated through the House. I also echo the calls for the statutory guidance to be issued well in time. Perhaps my noble friend could reassure the House that the department will work as hard as it possibly can to get this in before the September school year starts.
The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]
My Lords, I speak in my capacity as chair of the National Society, and thus lead bishop in the Church of England for education. In principle, uniform is a fantastic leveller: it can foster unity and provides an opportunity for students to worry less about the challenges of fitting in. It is therefore worrying to find that the cost of uniforms is instead causing division by highlighting disparities. Having poverty- aware uniform policies means that we can avoid worsening the disadvantages that a child in poverty is already faced with. We must return uniforms to being beneficial, which the Bill will do. The Bill has my support, as it would ensure that all families can afford uniforms.
My own region, the north-east, has the worst rates of child poverty in the country. This unacceptable poverty makes the life prospects of many children heartbreaking. Through the disproportionate struggles this region has faced, many lessons have been learned about school uniforms. There is, for example, the community school clothing scheme, established by a local woman and stocking pre-loved uniforms for over 400 schools across the region for the last four years. There is also the “Faith in our communities” initiative, which provides schools with clothing banks. We can learn from North Tyneside Council’s poverty intervention fund; its school clothing vouchers cover the costs of unbranded essentials, such as coats and shoes.
The move to avoid expensive uniforms should be balanced by ensuring that it does not result in suppliers using forced or cheap labour. It is vital that we ensure that the ethical sourcing of clothing is part of the consideration, too. Can the Minister reassure me on this point?
Following work by the Children’s Society, which I commend strongly for all its work on the Bill, many dioceses have been pushing on these very issues, especially through their academies. In the north-east, some Church of England schools are now working with Etika uniforms on supplying fairly traded school uniforms. Subsidies are provided where there is an extra cost above less ethically sourced supermarket equivalents. This is not made a requirement but is offered as an affordable and ethical option. I also want to ask the Minister about the inclusion of public-private schools, as asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth.
Schools should be places of opportunity. We must not allow school uniforms to mean that sending your child to school is a burden rather than a blessing to low-income families. I therefore give my wholehearted support to this Bill.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for introducing this useful Bill today. On the whole, I welcome it and am happy that the Government are supporting it. I am a firm believer in the value of school uniforms. They are a great leveller and remove the temptation for some children, whose parents have bought them unnecessarily expensive and supposedly fashionable clothes, to show off their wardrobes in front of other pupils whose parents cannot afford such items.
I have seen my grandchildren trying on their new school uniforms and observed the pride and loyalty they engender in the school that they attend. My 12 year-old grandson, who attends a state school in north London, says that his uniform helps him spot other pupils from his school on the train or bus, and that he can approach them if he feels threatened or needs help.
Uniforms foster a sense of identity between pupil and school, and this encourages hard work. Their reputations rise or fall together with those of the school that pupils attend. It is also a mistake to remove branded items from school uniforms to save costs. No-brand uniforms weaken the identity of the school and reduce the incentive to maintain a uniform in pristine condition. One of my granddaughters attends a state primary school in south London. Her mother tells me that the basic uniform items cost less than those shown in the study produced by the Schoolwear Association but that all in—including bags, PE kit and shoes—it costs around £300 a year. I also have two grandchildren who attend private schools; their equivalent costs are around £600 to £650 a year.
The Government’s non-statutory guidance, last updated in 2013, has been only partially effective. I agree that it would be good to make it statutory. Schools should be free to adopt single-supplier policies, especially in the case of smaller schools, where the total quantity required does not warrant more than one supplier. They should, however, adopt a regular and robust open-tender process. Lastly, can my noble friend the Minister say whether the Government intend to use our newly gained freedom from the EU’s VAT regime to exempt school uniforms, which would be enormously helpful?
Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I begin by congratulating my noble friend Lady Lister on sponsoring this Bill in our House. She has spent her life campaigning on social inequalities and is a true expert on this, so I thank her. I also thank the Member of Parliament for Weaver Vale, who persuaded the House of Commons to pass this Bill. My speech would not be complete if I did not commend the Government for the openness and flexibility they have shown in dealing with the Bill. I hope they will retain that openness and listen to some of the ideas that have emanated from noble Lords. I feel privileged to speak in this debate; this is an important issue that, as we know, affects thousands—indeed, millions—of individuals.
My experience means that I agree with the many noble Lords who have argued today that they are unhappy about sole—or, as they are sometimes called, exclusive—suppliers. I agree with them because my observation has been that, where there is a sole supplier, the cost of school uniforms shoots up. That is not only my experience: the surveys all show a considerable increase in the cost of school uniforms when one outlet has a monopoly. We need competition in this field.
The Minister in the House of Commons indicated that he is not persuaded by banning exclusive supplier status. I wonder if he would be prepared to be open and test that. Would the Government commission a survey comparing the costs of school uniforms in areas that have sole supplier status with those where choice is available? Once he gets that information, can he then look at the subject again?
Finally, will the Government look at the possibility of ensuring that schools are required to sell school badges in order that these can be sewn on to garments for school uniforms? I think that that would also help to reduce prices.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I certainly support this Bill, encouraging as it does a reduction in costs—but it would be better to get rid of school uniforms. They are an outmoded idea and, ultimately, a repressive aspect of the education system itself, designed to keep children in line. They are, in effect, part of the wider educational policy working against a child-centred approach to education.
No school has to have a school uniform; nevertheless, the Government do not take a neutral stance on this, strongly recommending that schools have one. Moreover, in its guidance, the department states that the school uniform policy
“flows from the duties placed upon all governing bodies by statute to ensure that school policies promote good behaviour and discipline amongst the pupil body.”
I am fortunate in being able to send my daughter, who is now 16, to a school without a uniform. This is fortunate in the UK because it is the norm in all countries in Europe, barring ourselves, Ireland and Malta. My daughter has given me a quotation for this debate: “Thank God I don’t have to wear a school uniform; I wouldn’t be able to express myself every day.” Her words have a particular resonance at the moment, when school is the only time that children are seeing each other in person.
School is where you spend most of your time as a young person, with your friends and peers. It is the right place for teenagers in particular to test out what to wear and find their own style—that is, in itself, an important part of education. Parents will in any case have to buy the clothes that their children wear outside school; we do not live in the 1950s anymore. Children cannot wait to be out and about post-Covid, including going to parties. Young people wishing to wear the latest designer clothes is something that, to an extent, happens anyway, so why try to sweep that under the carpet and pretend it does not exist for most of the time children spend in school?
Perhaps, with the increased competition between schools encouraged by government, it is school uniforms that have increasingly become the luxury designer clothing item: the additional, in my view unnecessary, cost, which has little to do with education but everything to do with status. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, last year’s survey by the Children’s Society points out that
“nearly a quarter ... of parents said that the cost of school uniform had meant their child had worn ill-fitting, unclean or incorrect uniform.”
It has always been the case that you can tell who the poorest children are, and it is particularly easy to do so with school uniforms. They are not a means of levelling up—otherwise, we would not have this Bill.
Whereas over 90% of schools in England insist on school uniforms, a much lower percentage of parents—around 67%—are in favour of them. There is increasing school uniform scepticism, and the Government and schools should listen to those voices.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, on sponsoring this Bill in your Lordships’ House, and I particularly pay tribute to Mike Amesbury, the Member for Weaver Vale in the other place, who introduced it. If it becomes law, it is a great achievement, particularly for an Opposition Member.
I am afraid that I have to disagree pretty much wholeheartedly with the previous speaker, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, as I consider uniforms to be a great leveller. In my travels around the world, I have certainly seen the pride that children have in their uniforms, particularly in Africa. I cannot see how allowing children to show off their designer clothes helps that levelling.
As a past devotee of Private Member’s Bills in the other place, and as a long-time Friday Whip, I know that time is of the essence and so brevity must be the order of the day. I commend this Bill as a model example of what a Private Member’s Bill should be. I also echo the entreaties of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that we should try not to make improvements to it at this late stage. It is welcome legislation that I sincerely hope will make it on to the statute book.
As I said earlier, I am a believer in the undoubted merits of school uniforms, but I recognise that the cost can be a great burden for many, especially when you think that children may well grow out of some items very rapidly. Providing uniforms for your children can quickly become a nightmare for many.
Any guidance produced as a result of the Bill must ensure that affordability is at the heart of any contracts that schools sign up to with suppliers. However, the guidance must also consider whether schools will have sole suppliers of badged or branded items. We have heard about that a lot, and I agree with those who have advocated keeping the numbers of those items to a minimum.
However, the position of retailers, who, let us face it, have had a pretty difficult 12 months, must also be considered in the mix, as parents will always want to have quick access to stock in various sizes. However, holding stock is a costly business for retailers—I speak as someone who was heavily involved in my family retail business more than 30 years, although we never stocked school wear.
Governing bodies should—and, I believe, do—ensure that price is key to the granting of contracts to suppliers. I also echo the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, who said that steps should be taken to ensure that, in the interests of affordability, transparency in supply chains is maintained, and that no issues regarding modern slavery arise. However, I am sure that a reasonable balance can be achieved, and, with that in mind, I wish the Bill a speedy passage through your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Jolly (LD) [V]
My Lords, this must be the shortest Bill that I have debated—yet it is really welcome and should help large families and those on lower incomes. Like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for bringing it to this House.
When I started primary school, over 60 years ago, none of us wore a uniform; it was not until we went to secondary school that we wore a basic grey skirt and a white shirt with a tie. At 11, I was proud of it, and, by the time I left, I was fairly rebellious. As my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal has said, there is no discussion of what to put on in the morning and no comparison of who is wearing what.
A generation later, when our son went to the local village school—it was a village with quite a high level of poverty—not everyone wore the simple uniform; it was not an issue and that was just the way it was. The school to which he moved a few years later had a uniform —it is the same now as it was then: dark trousers or skirt and white polo shirt with printed motif, and a scarlet-red sweatshirt with the same motif as the shirt. Branded items are sold by the school to cover the cost, and governance of the arrangements is monitored by the school governing body. The overprinted garments are sold to cover the costs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said, neutral trousers or skirts are available at many superstores locally or from mail order outlets. Schools can use their discretion to assist families where appropriate.
The Bill would require the Government to publish legally binding guidance requiring school authorities to consider costs when setting school uniform policies. This is to be welcomed, but I wonder whether the Minister could clarify a couple of points. How is adherence to this to be checked? Would it be part of an Ofsted inspection or some annual return? Does the Children’s Commissioner have a view about the Bill? In 2015, the Department for Education made a commitment to make the guidance statutory. Why have we waited six years for it to be implemented?
The Bill is in response to concerns about the high cost of school uniforms. It was introduced as a Private Member’s Bill in the Commons. It meets a well-documented and acknowledged need. I am sure that it will have a more certain future than many Private Members’ Bills that get a Friday hearing in this place. Can the Minister confirm that issues such as branded items, sole-supplier arrangements and the availability of second-hand uniform will be covered in the guidance?
This little Bill deserves a Committee and Third Reading. Like the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, I hope that it will soon be on the statute book.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I agree with all noble Lords this morning—except the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty—that there is overwhelming evidence of the benefits of school uniforms for both children and schools, so I support the intention of the Bill. However, I do not support the department failing to produce the draft guidance for us to see. Nor do I support legally enforceable obligations being imposed in the form of guidance which bypasses parliamentary scrutiny. These are serious deficiencies which ought to be remedied.
Way back last September when this Bill was in Committee in another place, the Minister there—my right honourable friend the very able Nick Gibb—said that the guidance would be published as soon as possible. On Report, he said that it was “progressing well” when asked by Chris Chope MP to produce a draft before the Bill concluded in this House. So where is it? It is not rocket science to convert voluntary guidance into statutory guidance and show us a draft.
We are being asked to buy a pig in a poke here and are being fobbed off. The department has had ample time to tweak the guidance into statutory guidance, but it does not want to show it to us until the Bill is passed and then, hey presto, the guidance will miraculously appear. There is only one valid solution for that ploy, which is to lay the guidance before Parliament for scrutiny in the form of a statutory instrument.
In new Section 551A(2) inserted by Clause 1, the Secretary of State is given exceptionally wide-ranging powers to make laws on anything he thinks “relevant” with regard to uniforms—not even the normal parliamentary test of anything he thinks “necessary” or “appropriate”, but simply “relevant”.
I am the chair of the Delegated Powers Committee, but I am speaking in a personal capacity this morning since my committee has not yet looked at the Bill or reported on it. I can say with three years of experience that this ploy of designating something which has statutory effect as mere guidance and not laying it before Parliament has been an unacceptable and growing phenomenon in recent years. Measures which are in effect regulations are rebranded as “guidance” or “protocols” instead. This guidance will be interpreted by thousands of schools, and some parents or groups of parents and uniform suppliers will disagree with the decisions, and those disagreements will ultimately end up in court. How ironic that judges will decide on the guidance and Parliament will never have had a chance to look at it.
This so-called guidance should be a statutory instrument, with the negative procedure only so that it can become law immediately but could be prayed against if necessary. It is not acceptable for the department to boast that it will consult widely with everyone—everyone except Parliament. I therefore propose to table in Committee a little amendment that the guidance be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. I do not want to hear excuses that this will delay the Bill. No doubt the department will say that it cannot accept any amendments because then the Commons will have to approve them. There is no problem there; the Commons has ample time to do that if it accepts the amendment. In any case, that should have been thought of before trying to bounce this Bill through without producing the draft statutory guidance or seeking to avoid parliamentary scrutiny.
If something is important enough to be made statutory, it is important enough for Parliament to scrutinise it, no matter how little.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I endorse the principles of this Private Member’s Bill and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, on bringing forward this much-needed legislation, albeit of one clause, that deals with the cost of schools uniforms.
This issue has gained momentum during the pandemic period, when many parents are furloughed or have become unemployed when they did not expect to be and therefore have less money to meet financial outlays. Furthermore, more families are reliant on foodbanks. Eleven years of austerity and the benefit cap have meant that choices have had to be made between eating and heating their properties. A further choice that parents have had to make in terms of school selection for children is whether their budget will cover the cost of the school uniforms, which in many cases can be up to £400 per child when we consider PE uniforms, all the branding and the issue of single suppliers.
As a consequence, parental choice has been inhibited by the cost of school uniforms. That means that children could be denied their proper access to a suitable school offering good educational courses with a sound basis for advancement and choice of careers. People need adequate resources and funds to purchase good-quality school uniforms. The situation has been compounded this year by the lack of accessibility to school, home schooling and parents finding out when their children are about to return to school that parts of the school uniform no longer fit. Therefore a sound, second-hand, affordable replacement/exchange policy needs to be in place so that they can access quality school uniforms and put their own up for resale to other parents and children. At some stage, that feature should be looked at. The Children’s Society has looked at all these issues and is definitely well informed about them.
I understand that the Government support the principles of this Bill, so I ask the Minister what progress has been made on drafting the statutory guidelines. Other noble Lords have referred to the time that has been taken. Will Parliament be consulted on the nature of the statutory guidelines and, if so, what will be the timeframe for that consultation and decision? When will the guidelines be implemented? What discussions have taken place with school authorities and, in turn, have they prepared parents and staff in all schools for the statutory nature of the guidance?
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Lister on her introduction and taking on the task of guiding this Bill through your Lordships’ House. There is not a lot more to be said, and I can shorten it by saying that I totally agree with the views set out by the Child Poverty Action Group and the Children’s Society and that I am unpersuaded, having read it carefully, by the submission by the Schoolwear Association. However, I want to add my support to the Bill. It is an issue that I have followed closely for many years as a parent and as a past leader of the largest local education authority in the country.
There is one word in the Bill that made me pause. We see that proposed new subsection (6)(a) in Clause 1 refers to the “proprietor” of schools. I must admit that my heart runs cold when I see that, as it is a token of the way in which education has taken a wrong turn. However, leaving that on one side, the uniforms under the code should be simple and generic. They should be available from a range of retailers, be it Tesco or Asda— other retailers are available. It is important that the code adopts that approach rather than the ideas of trying to replicate the onerous cost of uniforms that we see in far too many schools. Of course, school identity is important, as some previous speakers have emphasised, but these should be added at only a minimal cost.
I strongly support the Bill, look forward to seeing the code and hope that it provides the relief that parents need in terms of cost and accessibility.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con) [V]
My Lords, I welcome this Bill. While it may be one of the briefest to come before this House, its effect should be widespread and beneficial to parents and pupils alike.
Back in 2012, Holland Park School in west London, a then local-authority run school, soon to become an academy, moved into its newly built state-of-the-art building, and its leadership team decided that pupils should have a new uniform. Not only did they pick an entirely brand new uniform but each item had a light blue flash on it. It was not something that you could buy in any clothes shop; it was and still is bespoke. The blazer alone cost £65 compared to a plain boy’s blazer from Marks and Spencer, which costs £26. The blue stripes are on every aspect of the uniform, from trousers to backpacks; they are all bespoke. This represented a massive financial outlay for families in replacing a perfectly good uniform with new expensive kit, almost overnight. There was no phasing from the old to the new uniform and, if a parent had more than one child at the school, it meant an even greater outlay overnight. A more affordable option would be for the school to provide badges for parents or pupils to sew on to the pocket of a plain blazer and bag, thus providing a personalised aspect for a school uniform at less than half the price of the bespoke one.
This is the sort of expenditure that families cannot afford, let alone afford in one go. In addition, we all know that these costs accumulate over school life when replacing damaged uniforms or ones that the child has grown out of, yet again. I am told that Citizens Advice was inundated at the time, with parents at their wits’ end to know how they would be able to afford it. Citizens Advice helped some to apply to a local charity for a uniform grant, but parents should not be placed in that situation.
My one hesitation about this Bill is that we are not seeing the draft guidance and, too often, the devil is in the detail. I ask the Minister to assure this House that the guidance will make it clear that bespoke uniforms should not be an option for schools and that any change in uniform is brought in gradually so that parents can financially plan ahead.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for introducing this Bill and for all her work. I have my own memories of going to school in hand me downs from my sisters, and the horror of a hand-knitted cardigan when everyone else had shop-bought ones. The briefings that we received for this debate include harrowing accounts of children bullied by classmates, reprimanded by teachers and even excluded for contravening uniform rules. Alongside these stories, I want to put on record the efforts of countless teachers who go out of their way and dig into their own pockets to provide clothing for pupils in need.
Many arguments are made for uniform as a leveller, but schools often use uniform to do the opposite, stipulating bespoke details that distinguish them from other schools. This has the unfortunate effect of building in cost, and also means a whole new uniform if parents move to a new area. Even requiring an open-neck shirt rather than one that buttons to the top limits choice of suppliers and pushes up price. While blazers might be considered a safe choice, most young women go through extreme physical changes during secondary school, meaning that the most expensive item of the uniform has to be bought several times over or, in my case, bought in such a generous size that, while it swamped me at the outset, it at least lasted the necessary five years. Some schools even stipulate the colour of coats because students are “representing the school” beyond its gates. Is that really the purpose of school uniform? Surely, young people carry enough pressures without being expected to represent their school on the proverbial number 9 bus.
This Bill is a chance to right some of these wrongs. Can the Minister ensure that, if it is passed, regulations will ensure that school governing bodies prioritise affordability and value for money, that uniform is available at a range of outlets and the list of suppliers is regularly reviewed, that branded and expensive items are avoided, that parents are consulted on proposed changes and that financial hardship support is clearly signposted? I also look forward to her answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, about fee-paying schools where, as I know from experience, parents of fee-assisted students can struggle with eye-watering uniform costs. Finally, will the Minister, who I know cares deeply about young people, use her powers to ensure that schools are prevented from sending home or excluding children who fail to comply with uniform policies?
This Bill does not seek to ban school uniform, but it provides a chance to ask the question about what uniform is for. Theories abound—that uniforms improve behaviour, foster pride and create an environment without victimisation—but hard evidence is harder to come by, and the only safe conclusion is that it is not clear whether there is a causal link between strict uniform policies and attainment. One thing is clear: for teachers, the most important thing is to have the student in the classroom, whatever they are wearing, and time spent disciplining for uniform infringements would be better spent on teaching.
This Bill is an important step in reducing the cost of education for low-income families, but it needs to be a first step. The Cost of the School Day project highlights the trips, lunches, kits, equipment, dress down or dress up days that pile cost on parents and leave some children marginalised. So, let us start with uniform, but recognise that it is only the beginning if we are serious about levelling up.
Lord Storey (LD) [V]
My Lords, like most noble Lords I am a great supporter of this Bill, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the Member for Weaver Vale for bringing it forward.
I think that the only speaker who has questioned the Bill has been the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, whom I normally always agree with. I have to tell him that I taught as a deputy head in a school in a deprived community where the head teacher and governors did not believe in school uniform. The result, as other noble Lords have suggested, was competition for the latest designer clothes, sweatshirts and t-shirts, trainers or whatever it was, which created great upset among the pupils. Those who could not afford the latest gear, as they called it, were often name-called and bullied.
The briefings clearly show the real concern that parents and families face over school uniform provision. I particularly thank the Children’s Society, the House of Lords Library, the Child Poverty Action Group and the Schoolwear Association for their briefings. Rather than repeat facts and figures, I shall tell noble Lords about two experiences which to my mind show the problem—one a follow-up the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes.
In Liverpool, a popular, local co-ed school had a very sensible uniform policy: grey trousers or skirt, a polo shirt and sweatshirt, all in the school colours and with the school crest, and inexpensive, hard-wearing and practical. In the sixth form, it was casual but smart, and no jeans. A new head teacher decided to replace the uniform—yes, she consulted. It then consisted of grey trousers for boys, a kilt for girls, a shirt or blouse, a tie, a V-neck pullover with the school colours woven into the V and a blazer with the school badge. For sixth-formers, it was a grey suit. It looked very smart, but it cost an arm and a leg and had to be obtained from the retailer who had exclusive rights. Needless to say, after a few months, the general wear and tear of playground activities took its toll. Parents from disadvantaged circumstances could not have several items, and you could soon tell family circumstances by looking at the pupils’ clothing. It led to name-calling and bullying.
My second observation is that, as a head teacher myself, I kept the uniform and sportswear at my school —with the support of governors—very simple, with a sweatshirt and polo shirt in the school colours and the choice of a shirt or tie if parents and pupils wanted that. However, I constantly got requests from school uniform providers, including well-known stores, to make my school clothing exclusive to them. In return, the school would get an amount of money for each item sold. I chose not to do that: we set up our own school uniform shop, which parents ran, and everything was sold at cost.
If we care about poverty and children’s well-being and mental health, this Private Member’s Bill is really important and needs support. I have two brief questions for the Minister—both have already been asked. First, why are independent and private schools not included? My observation is that they would very much want to be involved. Secondly, can the Government assure us that we will act with great speed to get this Bill through Parliament?
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate on a Bill that is timely, and not simply because the current non-statutory guidance is now eight years old. It is needed because far too many families—many more than when the Bill began its parliamentary journey a year ago—are experiencing financial pressures of all kinds. The cost of sending their children to school adequately clothed should not be one of them.
I commend my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett for her opening speech and for picking up the baton to ensure that the Bill moves through your Lordships’ House as smoothly as possible.
The current guidance states that schools should give the highest priority to the consideration of cost and value for money for parents, but evidence shows that, in too many cases, that simply is not happening. School uniforms are important in promoting school unity and a positive ethos while also acting as a leveller. Yet current school uniform policies too often let down the most disadvantaged pupils.
I should declare an interest on behalf of my son, whose branded school uniform—as is the case for all maintained schools in the London borough where we live—has but one supplier. That is the source of many complaints from parents, on the grounds not so much of cost, I have to say, but of availability. The start of the school year often seems to take the supplier by surprise because the new term has usually started before it is able to deliver all the uniforms that have been ordered. However, I should say that, today, no uniform is required: to mark Red Nose Day, all children are wearing an item in that colour.
I do not often disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, but I must on this occasion. I am a firm advocate of uniforms, which can and should make children feel equal to their peers. They also remove pressures to flaunt the latest and often expensive label or brand of clothes or shoes. Yet they are not cheap. My noble friend Lady Lister quoted research released last week by the Children’s Society that showed that parents spend in excess of £300 a year on school uniforms for each child. The Children’s Society also found that some parents choose a school based on the cost of the uniform, particularly where PE and sports kits are concerned. Families should never be put in that position. That survey of 1,000 parents also found—as other noble Lords have said—that nearly a quarter said that the cost of school uniforms meant that their child had worn ill fitting or incorrect uniform. So much for being equal to their peers.
Compulsory branded clothing is the major contributing factor to the high costs of school uniforms, often meaning that families can buy uniforms from only one supplier. It is a basic rule of economics that exclusive suppliers raise the cost of whatever they sell, and that holds for school uniforms, even where a tendering process has been carried out. I agree with my noble friend Lord Hain, the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and several other noble Lords that the Bill would have had greater effect had single suppliers been precluded—although, had that been the case, I doubt it would have progressed to this stage.
In November 2015, the Government published A Better Deal, which included a commitment to put the Department for Education’s existing school uniform guidance on costs on a statutory footing, stating:
“The government wants to ensure that effective competition is used to drive better value for money and will therefore put existing best practice guidance for school uniform supply in England on a statutory footing.”
So why continue to allow exclusive providers?
In September 2019, the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, wrote to the DfE in his role as chair of the Competition and Markets Authority, urging it to introduce legislation requiring schools to allow parents to shop around rather than insisting on a single supplier, after the CMA received an influx of complaints from parents on the issue that summer. The department responded, stating that the Government would put the legislation on a statutory footing
“when a suitable opportunity arises”,
although it did not commit to ending single suppliers. In that same month of September 2019, when giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, the then Education Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, said that
“there is a specific problem of a relatively small number of schools who use this requirement of monopoly suppliers for uniforms. I do not like it, because it is a pernicious way of excluding children from less well-off backgrounds.”
I cannot avoid asking the Minister whether she agrees with her predecessor.
Finally, the Bill’s Explanatory Notes state that the Bill
“will come into force two months after the day on which it is passed.”
In briefings to noble Lords, both the Local Government Association and the Schoolwear Association have pressed for a delay. I do not advocate a delay as such, because parents should have protection as soon as is practical, but a phased introduction, as suggested by my noble friend Lady Lister, would allow parents to make full use of existing uniforms and allow them and suppliers to plan properly for the introduction of new ones.
Statutory guidance is required, and we have no wish to see the Bill delayed. I look forward to assisting in it reaching the statute book by the end of the current Session, which we now understand means the end of next month.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, for introducing this Bill and all noble Lords for their contributions today. I also congratulate the honourable Member for Weaver Vale for getting this Bill through the other place unscathed.
The Government encourage schools to have a uniform because of how it can contribute to the ethos of a school and create a common identity among pupils. As many noble Lords have said, it is a social leveller. I must therefore disagree with the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. I happened to be out on the street when the Grey Coat Hospital secondary school was dispersing, and you just could not tell who was from what background because they were all in that distinctive grey uniform.
The Bill will reinforce the role of school uniform while reducing the cost to parents, which is a key point that the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, outlined. I know that noble Lords will want to know the intended contents of the statutory guidance and I take this opportunity to set out our proposed approach.
In relation to branded items, which have been the topic of much debate, the Government’s current non-statutory guidance advises that schools should keep such branded items of uniform to a minimum, as multiple branded items can significantly increase costs for parents. We plan to maintain this approach in the statutory guidance and specify additionally that their use should be limited to low-cost or long-lasting items. The guidance will provide information to schools about ways in which they can achieve the benefits of a branded item while keeping the cost to parents low. As the noble Lord, Lord Clark, said, this might involve the use of sew-on or iron-on logos, among other approaches, which was also mentioned by my noble friend Lady Gardner.
By taking this approach, we will set a clear expectation that schools should not overuse branded items—I agree with my predecessor, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, outlined, that this should not be a barrier to access to the best schools for disadvantaged children—while allowing schools to take sensible decisions based on their own individual circumstances. I have become aware, for instance, that some multi-academy trusts, such as Outwood Grange, which have a number of schools across a number of towns, have taken the decision to have the same uniform across all schools in their trust, thereby driving down the price of branded items for parents. In addition, Outwood provides students their first set of uniform for free, to further support parents with the cost of school uniform.
I will address the issue of sole-supplier arrangements, which many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Randall, raised. The department’s current non-statutory guidance recommends that schools avoid exclusive sole-supplier contracts unless a regular competitive tendering process is run, to secure best value for money for parents. To address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, trusts which have done this have been able to secure value, including commitments to avoid excessive price rises. It also helps with the point about stock across the year, which was also made. We intend to maintain this approach in the statutory guidance, while providing further information for schools on how to tender well, which will ensure that there is competition and transparency within schools’ supply arrangements. This approach will not punish good suppliers: their emphasis on quality and value for money will be rewarded as standards across the industry improve; nor will it diminish the value that sole suppliers are able to offer in terms of ensuring year-round supply, allowing the supplier to provide a full range of sizes and securing economies of scale.
The noble Lord, Lord Hain, referred to the situation in Wales. The Government’s approach is not to subsidise what can be overpriced uniform. The situation in England is more varied and the statutory guidance will be appropriate for parents and families in England.
Many noble Lords raised the issue of second-hand uniform. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, that statutory guidance will cover the provision of second-hand uniform, which can play a valuable role—an essential role, actually—in keeping the costs of school uniform reasonable for all parents. I would like every school to ensure that arrangements are in place so that second-hand school uniform is available for parents. It was pleasing to hear the examples from the right reverend Prelate of the bespoke second-hand shops and initiatives in the north-east.
My noble friend Lord Trenchard spoke about VAT. Clothing for under-14s is already exempt from VAT, at a cost of around £2 billion a year. There are no plans to extend the VAT exemption to older children. I note with interest the comments of my noble friend Lord Moynihan about the use of technology and the emergence of online second-hand shops.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham raised ethical issues. We want schools to give high priority to cost considerations and value for money, but that does not prevent them taking account of other issues which are important in their local context, such as ethical sourcing. There is a waste resources action plan out of Defra, working with the supermarkets, which many noble Lords have said is where a lot of families get their non-branded items, and there is a voluntary agreement at the moment, called the sustainable clothing action plan, which the Government are supporting.
The noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Bourne, the right reverend Prelate and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, mentioned independent schools. In choosing an independent school, parents are making that choice in terms of paying the fees, and school uniform costs are something that they need to take into consideration. I take on board the point made by the noble Baroness in relation to scholarship children, and when I next meet the Independent Schools Council, I will raise this issue of scholarship students.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, and others made reference to the behaviour policy and the bullying that can take place. Of course, behaviour and any exclusion decisions are for the school and the governing body, but that is part of Ofsted’s inspection regime so, in that respect, it would be monitored. As for what happens if a parent has a concern about the cost of school uniform, or a complaint, that is to be made directly to the school and is not a matter we intend putting under Ofsted’s purview. If the parent is not happy with the result of complaining to the school, they can come to the department about it. We understand that sometimes, when schools change leadership and there is a new head teacher, et cetera, there can be a change in uniform policy but, of course, there should be consultation in relation to that. Under the statutory guidance, they must have regard to that, including the cost of school uniforms.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, hospital schools will not be within the purview of the Bill because we feel they are in a unique situation and it would be inappropriate to bind them in that way.
Many noble Lords are eager to know when the statutory guidance will come into effect so that parents can benefit from it. I share this view, but we need to ensure that schools can implement changes in a timely and considered manner, to prevent parents incurring additional costs from short-notice policy changes, and particularly having to waste uniform already purchased. Subject to Royal Assent and appropriate stakeholder engagement, I would like to be in a position to issue the guidance this autumn. While schools will not be required to make sudden changes to their uniform policy in September, we expect schools to start thinking about the changes they need to make once the guidance is issued. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, that we will set out clearly in the statutory guidance when we expect schools to implement the requirements.
I say to my noble friend Lord Blencathra that the passage of the Bill thus far has generated valuable and considered debate, and the Government have been keen to take into account the views raised in Parliament in developing the statutory guidance. I reassure noble Lords that, as I have done today, the Government will continue to clearly set out our position on school uniform and the content of the statutory guidance for the House during the legislative process—that is a matter of public record. I commit to sharing a copy of the draft statutory guidance so that noble Lords can have sight of it. I assure all noble Lords that we will continue to engage with them and with key stakeholders before we finalise the guidance, to ensure that it will be fit for purpose. This includes representatives of schools, parents and other interested parties, such as the Children’s Society and the Schoolwear Association, whose members, to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, supply uniforms both on the high street and online.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised valuable points regarding future revisions of the statutory guidance. I reassure noble Lords that, should the guidance be revised significantly in future, the Department for Education will assess the economic impact of changes and undertake similar stakeholder engagement. Obviously, I am happy to meet my noble friend Lord Blencathra to, I hope, assuage his concerns. There is no intention here to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and I hope that by agreeing to share the draft statutory guidance I have allayed his fears, but we may have to explore, in that meeting, whether having regulations, when something like this probably needs to be amended quite frequently, is actually the best use of the important role that Parliament has in scrutinising this.
The Bill, as noble Lords have outlined, will help families across the country who may be struggling to afford school uniform. The Government support the Bill and ask noble Lords to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and resist the temptation to table amendments: I urge noble Lords to support her in that.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I am very grateful to noble Lords for their kind words and for, in virtually every case, I think, their strong support for the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister, who responded so ably to everything that was said that I do not need to do so—I am conscious of time and of other Bills waiting to be debated. I will simply emphasise, as a number of noble Lords did, the importance of speed, both in terms of getting the Bill on the statute book and then getting the guidance out for this autumn, so that a phased introduction of statutory guidance can take place.
As a number of noble Lords said, we are in a situation where there is dire child poverty. Poverty is growing and families are under ever greater pressure, so the Bill is even more important than when it was first introduced in the House of Commons. With that, I look forward to reading in Hansard the very constructive comments that noble Lords have made.
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Thursday 22nd April 2021
(3 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 176-I Amendment for Committee - (13 Apr 2021)
Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill
Wednesday 28th April 2021
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021 Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 176-I Amendment for Committee - (13 Apr 2021)
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I put on record my thanks to my honourable friend the Member for Weaver Vale, Mike Amesbury, for introducing and skilfully piloting the Bill through the other place. I thank all noble Lords from across the House who gave it such strong support, regardless of their views on the merits of school uniform or on the level of parliamentary scrutiny of the draft statutory guidance. My thanks go to Ministers in the Department for Education, Nick Gibb and the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for their support and assistance throughout the Bill’s passage, and to Ben Burgess of the Government Whips Office, who has been unfailingly helpful to this Private Member’s Bill novice. I also thank the Children’s Society, especially Hannah Small. It has worked hard for the Bill to become law. In doing so, it has been spurred on by the children and young people who sat on the society’s Children’s Commission on Poverty, and subsequently by the children and parents with whom they work. I pay tribute to them all.
It has been a privilege to sponsor the Bill through your Lordships’ House. Just the other day I received a report on school uniform costs from the Covid Realities research project. It quoted a lone mother:
“It’s been nothing but worry. I’m anxious and financially broke, paying £310 for school uniform. When I only receive £556 a month.”
I hope that, thanks to this modest Bill, low-income parents will no longer have to suffer such anxiety over the cost of uniforms. I hope too, therefore, that the Bill will be implemented as quickly as is reasonable.
Royal Assent
Thursday 29th April 2021
(3 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 March 2021 - (12 Mar 2021)