Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

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

[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.