Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

James Daly Excerpts

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

[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.

Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill (First sitting)

James Daly Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 16th September 2020 Public Bill Committees

[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.