Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[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My one hesitation about this Bill is that we are not seeing the draft guidance and, too often, the devil is in the detail.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.