Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill

Committee

Clause 1: Guidance about the costs of school uniforms: England

Amendment 1

Moved by

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 15, at end insert— “(4A) The Secretary of State must lay the guidance and any revised guidance before Parliament, and when he or she has done so he or she may bring the guidance or revised guidance into operation by order.(4B) A statutory instrument containing an order made under subsection (4A) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”

My Lords, my amendment would ensure simply that the statutory guidelines could be scrutinised by Parliament in the lowest form of scrutiny we have: namely, the negative procedure. My amendment could not be more simple or reasonable. It says simply that the Secretary of State must lay the guidance before Parliament and may bring it in by the negative procedure. That procedure, as we all know, allows the guidance to take immediate effect, but would permit parties in Parliament, if so minded, to debate it. Just as with the thousands of other SIs which pass through here every year, there would probably be no debate, no objection and no vote—but at least our excellent Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee would get a chance to have a look at the regulations. That is all my amendment seeks.

I criticised the Bill at Second Reading on these grounds, and also because we had not seen a draft of the guidance that we were being asked blindly to rubber-stamp. Well, I am able to give some mild praise to the Minister before I start on some mild criticism. The department has now published the draft guidance, which is very helpful for all of us. I appreciate that it may change and that more people and organisations may have input into it, but this House has usually demanded, and rightly so, to see any draft guidance or draft regulations that we are being asked to take on trust.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I thoroughly approve of the Bill and am not opposed to it. Indeed, if there was an opportunity to have the other place deal with our amendments before the end of this Session, I would push this amendment to a vote, and I would put down another amendment insisting that all schools create, either by themselves or through parents or a charitable trust, a system for used and second-hand uniforms. As a soldier in a Highland regiment, the only bit of new kit I had, out of scores of items, was boots and socks. Everything else was used, cleaned, repaired, refurbished and reissued—and by God we were proud to wear it. The only thing I rejected was second-hand long johns—I assure noble Lords that they do not want to wear second-hand long johns from a Scottish soldier.

My Lords, when a balloon has the air let out of it, it appears to be merely a piece of useless rubber. I have a view about what I call the “Chope approach” to Private Members’ Bills—Christopher Chope, as Members will know, has familiarised himself with just about every piece of private Members’ legislation going through the House of Commons in order to filibuster or find a way of blocking it. I really hope that the mover of the amendment will respect the fact that this is a very small but important Bill in terms of what happens in real life, out in the school communities that our children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces attend.

I hope that this afternoon we will lay aside this amendment, which is designed to block the Bill if it is pressed; the mover acknowledged that himself, of course. He also talked about the Scottish long johns. My grandchildren’s school—Windmill Hill in the north of Sheffield—has a little scheme along similar lines. We were talking only this morning about how important that approach is in helping to ensure that nothing is wasted and that no one feels as though they are disqualified from being able to present themselves effectively because of their income. That is what, in essence, this Bill and the guidance are all about.

It has taken 50 years to get to this point, it has to be said. So often, the issue of school uniforms was about class and the quality of the school you went to. It was about grammar schools versus secondary schools; the grammar schools took pride in their uniform and their distinguishing features, and others often felt resentful. Times have moved on—thank God—but I recall that, over 40 years ago, we should have learned in my party about how disastrous referenda can be when you hold them with the distinct intention of ensuring that, if you are defeated, you will carry on regardless.

In Sheffield at the end of the 1970s, just before I became the city council’s leader, it decided, because of the enormous cost of school uniforms, the class nature of what was taking place and the fact that poor people were struggling to keep up, that school uniforms should be abolished and put it to a referendum of all parents. The parents were in fact a couple of decades ahead of the city council and voted to keep school uniforms and to develop them in the schools that did not have them. The city council, in its arrogance at the time, decided that it would, on political grounds, do away with school uniforms whatever the vote. We learned a lot from that. I certainly learned that if you are going to ask people their opinion, you respect it.

My Lords, I am minded to support the spirit of this amendment for the straightforward reason put forward by your Lordships’ Delegated Powers Committee. It says that if an entire Bill can be dedicated to the cost aspects of school uniforms, the resulting guidance should be subject to parliamentary procedure. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I do not want to see this amendment pressed, as it would prevent the passing of this important Bill.

I am grateful to the Minister for ensuring that the House had the chance to review the draft statutory guidance in advance of today, but I would welcome clarification of a number of points in it. First, we know that branded items add cost and reduce choice of suppliers, and I welcome the reference in the draft guidance to branded items being “kept to a minimum”. But can she clarify what constitutes “minimum”? Is it a number or a proportion of the total number of items required, or does it mean something else?

The draft guidance is vague on financial support, the provision of support being apparently optional. Does she not agree that all parents in need should have access to school uniform grants and that schools have a duty to promote these funds? Will the Government commit to central provision of the funding required for school uniform grants?

At Second Reading, I asked whether the guidance would include the requirement for parents to be consulted on any changes to uniform specifications. The draft we have seen is relatively soft on this. At 25d, it says that schools

“should consult with parents and pupils on cost issues”,

and that the Government

“encourage schools to consult with parents and pupils on other aspects of their uniform when making significant changes to their policy”.

What is the rationale for the wording difference here? Why does it not use the stronger “should” or even “must” for policy changes, as well as cost issues?

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I thank my noble friend the Minister for issuing the guidance for us to look over before this debate.

This is a rather narrow and—in almost all cases—uncontroversial issue. It needs to be dealt with quickly, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, said; the sooner we can get this moving, the better. The sooner the guidance is issued, the better the position parents will be in to ensure that their children can comply with any requirements from this narrow Bill.

I sympathise in principle with the aims of my noble friend Lord Blencathra’s amendment. Having sat so often in recent months through legislation and statutory instruments that have gone through this House with so little scrutiny—and measures that have been introduced with no scrutiny—in principle I think it is important that the role of Parliament in scrutinising legislation be reasserted. We should make sure in coming years that the experience of the past months is not regularly repeated, but I cannot help but agree, I am afraid, with the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, that this Bill is not the right place to impose such a principle at this time.

It is urgent that we make sure that we do everything possible to get the Bill through before the end of this Session. The Government have issued a delegated powers memorandum, and I think my noble friend the Minister has been doing her utmost to make sure that we are moving this forward. Even if we were to accept this amendment and the negative procedure were applied, it is hardly likely that on its passage through Parliament—whether in debate or in the scrutiny committee—any meaningful change would be achieved.

I am delighted to see that the guidance emphasises the importance of keeping costs down for parents and keeping branded items to a minimum, which will also assist with costs. I have a few questions for my noble friend. The guidance mentions that schools should take a “mindful and considerate approach” to resolving problems where children are unable to comply with uniform requirements due to financial hardship rather than wilful non-compliance. Could my noble friend give some indication of what would constitute such a mindful and considerate approach?

My Lords, I was a little taken aback by the reaction to my comments at Second Reading, both from this House and from outside. I seem to have unwittingly struck a nerve. The question that I simply leave your Lordships with is why every country on the continent, with the sole exception of Malta, can get along perfectly well without school uniforms —including, importantly, state schools—while we apparently cannot.

Having said that, school uniforms are currently the norm in this country, and I want to make it clear that what I said at Second Reading was in no way an attack on the Bill. I support it and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, on bringing it to this House. School uniforms have become expensive and it is important that costs are kept down in the fight against poverty. I would therefore be very glad if the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, did not press his albeit justifiable amendment to a vote. I am also glad that we have sight of the draft statutory guidance, as the Minister promised, and which the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked for.

I have two questions for the Minister, of which I have given her advance notice. First, from my own vantage point, can she reassure me that the Bill, or any steps that the Government thereby take, will not affect the right of all schools to which the draft statutory guidance refers to decide whether they will have a school uniform? I appreciate that the Government have a stated preference. Nevertheless, there is a reference in the draft guidance to schools that

“may not have a uniform policy or dress code”

in paragraph 11. Still, I would like to hear that reassurance directly from the Minister.

My second question revolves around the curious fact that there does not seem to be a definition of what a school uniform is. It is perhaps assumed that we know what one is, but the truth is that the composition of uniforms may vary from school to school, and that in itself will affect costs. The draft guidance is fairly detailed, so a definition is implied, but a related concern is the cost of additional sportswear. Here I very much understand the importance of uniform in the practical sense, for team identification and aesthetically, so when paragraph 25(e) asks that additional items should not be used for interschool competitions, that feels disingenuous to me. Here again the cost to parents needs to be kept down. Could the Minister say a few words about that?

My Lords, I follow the remarks that have just been made in wishing the Bill to succeed and to move as quickly as possible to that end. A lot of people care about schools and school uniforms, and many of us may have noted the events in Pimlico of recent weeks.

I strongly support school uniforms. They are effective social levellers, really do help a good ethos and encourage camaraderie. Any good school head ought to make sure that his school has a well-structured, managed regime for second-hand school uniforms. I note that I still have a blazer from my schooldays that was second-hand when I acquired it.

Clearly it is crucial to keep costs down for parents and to review regularly the suppliers and the terms and competitiveness thereof. We need to encourage the second-hand clothing market in school uniforms. As I have just said, heads ought to take a role in leading that. However, if a school wants to retain a school uniform structure in the long term, it needs to achieve success now.

I was a little surprised to get the Department for Education paper. I thought I had read about a “daft cost of school uniform guidance”, but the word was actually “draft”. That makes the point that this is all far too complicated, and involving statutory elements is questionable. If you give schools too much to do, they will tend not to do the important things. Yes, provide advice to parents about uniforms, especially second-hand ones, but this document virtually envisages civil servants managing children’s school uniforms in detail. That is way over the top and I hope that, in due course, the Bill can be thinned down.

My Lords, I applaud this Bill and wish it a speedy passage through the House. Hence, although I see some merit in the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, I hope he will withdraw it, because we cannot afford to slow the progress of the Bill. I simply cannot agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Flight, just said. I do not think that this is over-prescriptive; indeed, I fear that I do not find the guidance prescriptive enough, although I am grateful to the Minister that she has made it available to us in advance of today’s debate.

Quite simply, the issue is that, at the moment, school uniform is too expensive for many families to afford, and in most cases it could be cheaper. I absolutely applaud the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, about children being excluded because they do not have appropriate uniform, when very often—although not always—it may well be family circumstances rather than their own strong will which means that this is the case.

I was much struck by an email I received from a mother with two children, both at state schools. She told me that if they have a games lesson now, her son has to wear tracksuit trousers in order to travel to school, because changing is no longer permitted at the school. The tracksuit trousers are specified and cost £54. She says that they are poor quality; we all know that tracksuit trousers can be obtained for a great deal less. In total, her son’s uniform for games costs £345, and that is before the cost of a mouthguard, hockey stick, tennis racket and games bag is taken into account. Her daughter’s is slightly cheaper. The games uniform is £311 but, again, that is before equipment is taken into account. These are huge sums for families to be confronted with, and they effectively rule children out from taking part in many cases. Indeed, my correspondent points out that many children claim to have forgotten their games equipment when they actually did not have it in the first place.

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. I do so as a former member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which he chairs so ably.

I remain a firm supporter of the vision and commitment of all those who have worked to ensure that this legislation reaches the statute book before the end of this Session. Indeed, I would go further and call on the Government to hear the strong case made by many children’s organisations that there should be a Cabinet-level Minister for Children to oversee a children’s charter and introduce government legislation where appropriate, not least in support of the need for enhanced welfare measures to support children. Should that have been in place already, this Bill is an example of a legislative change that could have been better introduced by government.

As a result, my comments in support of my noble friend’s amendment are made more for the record than out of any desire to impede the important progress of this legislation, since this important Bill is better than no Bill. Should this amendment be pushed to a Division, thereby impeding the chances of the Bill reaching the statute book, I would not support it. Under no circumstances, I might add, do I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, is correct in his assessment that this is in any way a blocking amendment. It is certainly not. For my noble friend Lord Blencathra is right—I hope that the noble Lord agrees—that this House has a duty to consider the balance of powers between the legislature and the Executive. Far too frequently, as has been pointed out, we allow the Executive to take powers and resist parliamentary scrutiny. This is a textbook case.

Full front and central to this Bill is statutory guidance. Personally, I would urge the Government to include keeping branded items to a minimum, provide more parental choice, use enhanced online exchanges for second-hand uniform and address the monopolistic practices of certain single supplier agreements that impact cost-competitiveness; my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft just gave a good example of that. I would also urge the Government to provide financial support for struggling parents, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, emphasised.

The noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, has withdrawn from this debate, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie.

My Lords, I hope I set out clearly at Second Reading the view of these Benches regarding the need for the Bill, and I have no intention of repeating what I said then. I would like just to recognise the valuable advice that the Children’s Society has continued to provide to myself and other noble Lords since Second Reading.

Since Second Reading we have also received the report by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House. At paragraph 3 the committee draws attention to the fact that the Bill’s Explanatory Notes at paragraph 13 say that the Bill

“sets out who has to comply with the guidance”,

yet paragraph 12 of the Department for Education’s memorandum to the committee states that the Bill does not impose any particular course of action in terms of compliance. Can the Minister offer clarification as to the at least apparent discrepancy between these two statements?

The draft guidance is welcome, not least paragraph 15, which reminds schools that they should keep branded items to a minimum—although it would have been useful to have an indication of what is meant by a minimum. The guidance also refers at paragraph 39 to local authorities and multi-academy trusts providing school clothing grants to help with the cost of uniforms for less well-off families. That will prove a decisive factor in the Government being able to deliver on their aim of ensuring that disadvantaged parents are not disproportionately affected by the cost of school uniforms. What assurances will the Minister provide to noble Lords that local authorities and multi-academy trusts will be provided with additional funding, ideally ring-fenced, to accompany the new guidance in this regard? Also, on the subject of single-supplier contracts, can the Minister explain how the draft guidance will guarantee transparency in the operation of such contracts, and in particular that there is genuine competitive tendering?