Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the availability of school uniform grants in each local authority in England.

The information requested is not held centrally as the Department does not collect figures on the number of local authorities that offer uniform grants. In England, some local authorities provide discretionary grants to help with buying school uniforms. Local authorities that offer these grants set their own criteria for eligibility.

Schools may also offer individual clothing schemes, such as offering second-hand uniform at reduced prices. This would be a decision for the school to make.

The Department’s non-statutory guidance on school uniform places extra emphasis on the need for schools to give highest priority to cost considerations. 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.

The Department’s guidance on school uniform is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform.