Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.

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[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.

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[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.

Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 12th March 2021 Commons Chamber

Will there be financial support, such as school uniform grants, for struggling parents, and will it be promoted and properly funded? That is addressed in amendment 1, but it does not need to be in the Bill; it can be in the guidance. Finally, will the Minister give an assurance that schools should not send home or exclude children who fail to comply with uniform policies for financial reasons? I have welcomed the Government’s support for the Bill so far, and the support of organisations such as the Children’s Society and of colleagues across the House, but parents now urgently need to see that support turned into action.

[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.

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[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.