Debate contribution: School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Extension of Committee Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 7 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

7 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Extension of Committee Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4891058

Read the official Assembly record

Text

In my capacity as the Chair of the Education Committee, I propose the Committee's motion to extend the Committee Stage of the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill to 3 December 2025. I will outline how the Committee agreed on the motion and the extension date. Although, it is worth noting that we are in a slightly unusual context because parties have confirmed, via the media, that they will support the amendment rather than the agreed Committee motion. Speaking as Chair, I can frame my remarks only around what was discussed and agreed formally in our meetings. I cannot speak to the contributions of other parties subsequent to that, outside the Committee structures. For the first part of the debate, I will limit my remarks to my role as Chair but I may conclude with some remarks as an Alliance MLA. The Committee took primary legislation guidance on 8 January and, again, when the Bill was introduced in March. The Committee then took pre-legislative and introductory briefings from departmental officials, had procedural advice from the Committee and Bill Clerks and discussed the components and reasonable time frames for good Committee Stage scrutiny. The Committee agreed that the components are: a call for evidence not equivalent to the Department's consultation timeline but a first chance for the public to consider and reflect on the provisions in the draft law; oral evidence sessions on the substance of the Bill; Committee deliberation on the evidence received in those oral evidence sessions; further engagement with departmental officials to answer queries that may arise from evidence sessions and the Committee members' consideration of the Bill; development and consideration, in conjunction with the Bill Clerk if required, of potential Committee amendments; informal and formal clause-by-clause scrutiny and approval of the Bill; and consideration and approval of the final Committee report to the Assembly. The Committee agreed to take those steps, and all members agreed that they were the appropriate stages of a Committee's scrutiny when considering any Bill. The timelines allocated a window of time that would not prejudge any of those stages or the outcomes. It is entirely usual for the Committee Stage to be extended and, in fact, highly unusual for the 30-day term set out in Standing Order 33(2) to be applied. Members will be aware that it is rarely, if ever, applied in practice. In their contributions, Committee members emphasised that we were not yet at the end of the mandate and that, therefore, there was time to fully consider stakeholders' views and ensure, on behalf of the Assembly, that the legislation being made would take account of all the factors in the round to enable good, effective law to be enacted without, we hoped, any unintended consequences. Further to the Committee's deliberations on the matter and its agreement to the date of 3 December, factoring in all the timescales, the Minister wrote to the Committee to express his disappointment at the proposed timetable. He formally proposed, in writing to the Committee, a truncated Committee Stage ending on 30 May. It will be helpful for me to set out how the Committee responded to the Minister, so that Members understand how the Committee's discussions gave rise to, and were reflected in, the response, which clearly sets out what was agreed:

"The Committee appreciates and shares your focus on making a difference in terms of affordability for parents in relation to school uniforms. The Committee also recognises and commends the effort that you and the Department of Education have made to urgently progress the Bill to this stage. The Committee noted your desire to see the Committee Stage concluded by 30 May. Unfortunately, this would have afforded us no time, following the close of our call for evidence, to engage with stakeholders, raise any issues with your Department or, indeed, consider any amendments which may be proposed. While we share your desire to see the Bill progress quickly, we do also need to be satisfied that the Bill will address the cost of school uniforms effectively and comprehensively. The Committee sees the extension of the Committee Stage of the Bill to 3 December not as a target to be met but as a window allowing the Committee time to carry out the component elements of Bill scrutiny without haste or unintended consequences arising. The Committee will, nonetheless, endeavour to complete the Committee Stage with urgency, hopefully well in advance of 3 December, while carrying out the careful scrutiny that its statutory role requires. It is the Committee's intention to work with both the Department and stakeholders to deliver the best possible outcome for parents and pupils."

That was the Committee's agreed position at that time on the response to the Minister. It reflected our conversations around his request to close the Committee Stage on 30 May. It is, of course, not for the Minister to determine the length of the Committee Stage of any Bill. The Committee reassured him in that correspondence that it will proceed with urgency but apply appropriate scrutiny and allow enough time to do so. Neither is it for the Committee to determine the next steps that the Minister may envisage, but he has been clear, including in his correspondence, that he hopes to have the law in effect to permit schools to reflect it in their prospectuses, which must be published in November. When that was being considered by the Committee, members expressed concern that, once the Bill was passed, the timescales in which to channel new guidance, through various layers of consultation and communication via parents and boards of governors, into prospectuses by November, for application next year, would be extremely pressured, and that did not even factor in engagement with suppliers and their supply chains, which need to be taken into account — unless, of course, the guidance is ready now and would remain, at that point, completely unchanged, but we should not assume that that will be the case. That aside, the Committee was interested in the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of the provisions of the primary legislation. It was clear from our discussions that members were likely to have an appetite for amendments across several areas of the Bill, not least its central planks relating to uniform styles and a potential cap on costs, which, from the Bill as drafted, it seems that the Minister is not in a position to commence, if, indeed, we have any assurance that they will be commenced at all. Committee members were keen to receive more information from the Department on that point. Completing the Committee Stage by 30 May would leave the Assembly just five weeks in which to pass the Bill through all its stages before summer recess, which was the Minister's request. That means five weeks in which to complete Consideration Stage, Further Consideration Stage and Final Stage. The Committee was clear that the scheduling of those stages would be a matter for the Minister and the Executive Committee, but it was highlighted that delivering the stages so close together could seriously constrain Members' ability to bring amendments and contemplate the Bill fully before Final Stage. I am therefore content that, on balance, what I have set out reflects the Committee's deliberations and that, in full awareness of the Department's assurances about working to effect positive outcomes for pupils and parents in the context of a cost-of-living crisis, a Committee Stage extension to 3 December is reasonable and serious, representing the Committee's good faith and commitment to making good law for every constituent who will be affected by it. I caveat that with the clear information that was included in the Committee correspondence that the hope and intention was to complete the Committee Stage well in advance of 3 December. I will turn to the amendment that my Committee colleagues Peter Martin and David Brooks tabled, which proposes that the Committee Stage end on 30 August. I do not have a Committee position to reflect other than that in the agreed motion. I therefore reiterate my comments about the rigour of a process that potentially does not duly allocate time to the work that is required. Other Committee members have today clarified their position through media channels, and they will have the opportunity to speak to that position during the debate. It is not for me, as Committee Chair, to do so. On the scope and capacity for a Committee Stage to be delivered over the summer period, I draw Members' attention to the fact that, last Tuesday, we received notification from the Business Committee that the Assembly will be in recess from 4 July until 31 August 2025. I hope that the Members who tabled the amendment will clarify precisely how they foresee the situation playing out, because it will require the Committee either to complete its deliberations by 4 July or to sit through the summer recess. There is not, as was suggested in the Chamber earlier today, any unwillingness on the part of the Committee to engage in that kind of work. Rather, the concern is that it is unclear at this stage whether the necessary support from Assembly staff, via the Committee Clerk, her team and the Bill Office, and, indeed, departmental officials will be available over the summer recess in order to allow the process to be delivered effectively. We are aware that staff in the Building are often required to take their leave during recess periods because they are not permitted to take leave when the Assembly is sitting, so I am concerned that, if we were to attempt to run a Committee Stage over recess, we could be severely constrained by staffing resource and availability. Either way, it is clear from the Committee's deliberations that the Members who tabled the amendment did not divide the Committee at any stage to propose their alternative date, so the Committee does not have a record of their intentions in that regard. Furthermore, they have not, as far as I am aware, engaged directly with Assembly staff to understand their capacity to support a Committee Stage over the summer. I trust that they will have clear proposals at our next Committee meeting for how that will be delivered. It is worth noting, as I have already, that there were two separate Committee meetings at which we discussed the motion and the proposed date. Those were two separate opportunities to divide the Committee that were not taken. Instead, we have before us the rather unorthodox approach of an amendment having been tabled. With all that having been said, I am content to have moved the motion that the Committee agreed previously. I will now make some remarks in my capacity as an Alliance Party MLA and as one of our education spokespeople. First, I make it abundantly clear that Alliance fully supports legislation to address the cost of school uniforms. Had the Minister not introduced the Bill, I was already working on a private Member's Bill on the exact same issue, so I welcome the Bill's being introduced and welcome the fact that the Committee is getting the opportunity to look at it. I welcome the fact that, here in the Assembly, we will have the opportunity to do something about the costs involved, and I hope that, once we have it on the statute book, the law will tangibly and meaningfully address the challenges that parents face. It is not enough just to legislate, however. The legislation must be effective, and Alliance is clear that it wants to see legislation in that space that meaningfully delivers on bringing down costs. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the Education Committee take the time that it needs to scrutinise the Bill, and that goes for any Committee that has legislation in front of it. The Minister's initial proposal that we should finish our Committee Stage by 30 May was his effectively saying that there should be no scrutiny of the Bill at all. Once our call for evidence had closed, we would not have been able to hear from stakeholders, and we certainly would not have had time to reflect on the evidence that they had brought to us. Members would have had no time to seek further engagement or clarification from the Department, and the need for clarification will undoubtedly arise. There would have been no time to discuss and agree amendments. To me, the Minister's position therefore seems predicated on the assumption that the Bill is the finished article and that it cannot be improved and should not be amended. The amendment that is before us proposes a date of 30 August and leaves us, as I have already referenced, in an equally unclear position. Assembly staff — we have to deal with facts — are on leave over recess and, in many cases, are unable to take leave at any other time, and it will be the same for many of the Minister's officials. Are we potentially proposing an extension of a Committee Stage without any support staff to deliver it effectively? Is it a smokescreen so that it looks as though we are going to do the scrutiny work? From any Member who is proposing it, I would like to hear whether Assembly staff may be asked to cancel holidays in order to make that happen.

I am clear that I am ready to do the work over the summer if required, but that needs to be supported appropriately and effectively by the Assembly staff who are put in place to deliver that.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I am not an expert on the staffing structures around the Windsor framework Committee. My understanding is that those staff are engaged on a different set of terms and conditions, but I am happy to be corrected on that point. I will move on. There are many questions about the Bill, even from an initial cursory reading of it, before we get into any of the detail. Surely the biggest question is about what the Minister intends to do in relation to a cap on costs. That proposal received wholehearted support across the board from the majority of parental respondents to the Department's consultation, but the Bill provides only for an enabling power. We have no idea whether the Minister will ever use that power or what a proposed cap would look like, were he to do so. We do not know what criteria the Minister or his departmental officials will apply to assess when it would be appropriate to use the enabling power. The provisions will receive no serious scrutiny, even though they are, undoubtedly, complex, and will, undoubtedly, raise a range of issues about the potential consequences of delivering a cap and what it should look like. There will also be questions about when and how it should be brought forward. The idea that the Education Committee will not interrogate the reasons for the absence of a cap from the Bill or look seriously at how it could operate is completely unacceptable, given the huge public support that was demonstrated in the Department's consultation. There are many other issues that require attention. It is concerning that the Minister has put it forward as a simple Bill. It has been presented as something so straightforward that we might ask why the Committee would require the time. No legislation ever turns out to be so simple that we can just nod it through. The purpose of this place is to ask hard questions. Some questions about the Bill stand out. How will its effectiveness be measured and monitored? Will there be a way of assessing objectively whether costs have come down? Will the enforcement regime be robust and effective enough? What exactly will that enforcement regime look like? Are we clear about what will be in the new guidance? What will it look like when it lands on the desks of boards of governors who will then have to revise their policies? Are we to accept the departmental assurance that the Committee has had that all those things will be dealt with in the guidance and that we should not get too hung up on the detail of what that will look like? Ultimately, we can deliver the legislation quickly by trusting the Minister that the Bill is the finished article and does not require amending, or we can do it right. We can ensure that the legislation, which will impact on parents' pockets for years to come, not just for the next academic year, is fit for purpose, effective and comprehensive. The timings around the publication of school prospectuses are not in our control. I want to be clear: as an individual Member, I give my assurance that I will do nothing to stand in the way of delivering the scrutiny work well ahead of 3 December to facilitate, I hope, getting this into those prospectuses in time. If we rush to get this done to a timeline that is being imposed by the Minister just to make sure that we do not miss the cut-off for one academic year, we would, ultimately, run the risk of delivering ineffective legislation. I do not believe that parents would forgive us; it would represent a real failure.

It is not helpful to draw comparisons and say that one piece of legislation is simple and another is complex. I highlight the fact that this Bill's Committee Stage includes three recess periods, so comparisons of time are not necessarily accurate. If we do not sit over summer recess, the Committee Stage will be considerably shorter than what is being proposed.

Yes, I will give way.

I thank the Member for her intervention. The Minister has suggested that, if the Committee could conclude the process by, he hoped, the end of June or, let us say, given the amendment that is before us, the end of August, the Bill would then move through all of its stages in the Assembly in a number of weeks. I think that four weeks was suggested to the Committee as the timescale that the Minister was hoping for, which would be a very rapid progression through this place. If that was done, the Minister is confident that, between October and the publication of their prospectuses in November, all the consultation that schools would be required to do with parents and young people and their engagement with suppliers on lead-in times would be delivered in time for November. I am sceptical about whether that is deliverable. Do we want schools to be revising policies on a matter as important as this on the basis of something that has been cobbled together and rushed and, at that stage, would not be law? It would still be waiting for Royal Assent. We have to be realistic about that. I will not name and shame, but we all know the very worst offenders on the cost of school uniforms, the ones that genuinely price some parents out of even considering sending their children to them. I am not convinced that those schools will do the Minister a favour and redo guidance on the basis of something that does not yet have Royal Assent and is not on the statute book. We have to be realistic. We want the legislation to be effective, and, as the first step, there has to be a law to which schools are compelled to adhere. I am not sure, given the Minister's timescales, that that is what we would be dealing with. I will speak more broadly now. The issue of school uniform costs has sat at the desks of successive Sinn Féin and DUP Education Ministers for years. It has sat with DUP Ministers since 2016, who watched costs spiral in that time. No action was taken. We were assured that the guidance was OK and appropriate and that, if schools just followed it, there would be no issue. No action was taken to address it. That is the context and the timeline, and I factor in the times that the Assembly was not sitting. There were comments made in the Chamber earlier to the effect of, "Maybe Members just need to work harder". What about the two years in which nobody sat in this place? Lectures about how hard Members need to work will, at the very least, raise an eyebrow among the public.

I have given way a number of times. Should we now rush through our scrutiny to meet a deadline for this academic year while failing to assure ourselves that the legislation will deliver? Parents will not thank us for acting quickly, if the law does not make a difference. I am committed to ensuring that the legislation is, first and foremost, robust and effective. I emphasise again — I want it on the record — that I sincerely hope that the Committee will deliver its scrutiny in advance of 3 December, and I will do all that I can to ensure that it does. However, no Member should apologise for building in time to ask hard questions of legislation, because the good scrutiny work that we do now will protect parents' pockets in the future. The Minister has been clear that he wants to deliver the process quickly so that the new guidance can be in the prospectuses by November. We have already discussed that point regarding the amendment, so I will not labour it. We have to be realistic about whether that is deliverable. Will we rush through our Committee Stage with undue haste, fail to deliver the scrutiny and potentially still not have the changes reflected properly, appropriately and meaningfully in a way that makes a difference for parents in those prospectuses? We could end up doing neither, and, again, I am not sure that the public will thank us for that. I encourage Members to consider supporting the motion and not to vote for a truncated Committee Stage, particularly as that truncated stage runs over a summer recess and it remains entirely unclear whether Committee members would have the Assembly staff support available to allow us to reliably deliver a Committee Stage. Regrettably, on the basis of what has gone out in the media today, I suggest that minds are already made up. Despite some members speaking in Committee in clear, unequivocal support for the motion, they will choose not to support it in the Chamber. However, those Committee members can articulate that for themselves.

I will.

I thank the Member for his intervention. Both DUP Committee members expressed their concerns about the time, but they acknowledged the critical importance of good scrutiny and acknowledged that there was a balance to be struck. That is important to note. Ultimately, this is about ensuring that parents are protected from rising uniform costs. All Members agree on that. I want to be very clear: I have welcomed the Minister's legislation. I am glad to see that we have a Minister who has finally brought something forward for the Assembly to look at, but parents want the law to be enacted as soon as possible. That is right and appropriate. I imagine, however, that they will also want that law to have been fully scrutinised to ensure that it achieves what it sets out to do: bring down the costs of uniforms. They will look back in years to come — we have to be honest about it — and they will not ask how quickly the Minister delivered the school uniforms Bill. That will not be the question that they will ask. They will ask whether he delivered something that was effective and made a difference where they felt it: in their pockets. I hope that Members will consider giving the Committee time to do that work properly, appropriately and in the best interests of the parents who need the legislation to be effective.

3,993 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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