Debate contribution: School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Consideration Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Nick Mathison on 15 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Nick Mathison

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

15 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill: Consideration Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5099750

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Although Peter Martin may have been disappointed that the tone of the debate was a bit more negative than he would have liked, it has been clear that everybody in the Chamber is on the same page on at least one issue, which is that we need to do something about the cost of school uniforms. The question in this group of amendments is whether the Bill will ensure that the monitoring and enforcement of the guidelines to deliver on that intended outcome will be effective. A lot of the contributions that were made today when we discussed the content of those guidelines probably strayed substantially into group 2. We will get into that in more detail when we come to the next group of amendments. However, the issue before us is the monitoring and enforcement in group 1. I feel that amendment Nos 1 and 4 should really not cause anybody any undue concern. The idea that the Department would at least once every three years check in on the guidelines and look at them again to see whether they are effective seems to be fairly routine. It was the phrase "from time to time" being left in the Bill that caused Committee members concern. It was felt that there was a bit of a hands-off approach being taken: "From time to time, we might look at it, or we might not". If I say that I enjoy an activity "from time to time", that gives the sense that it happens once in a blue moon for me. That is how I read that, and we would want to look at it much more frequently than once in a blue moon or "from time to time". It should be clearly laid down, and I hope that Members take on board the Committee's considerations on that point. I cannot see that the Department should have anything to fear from laying the guidelines in the Assembly as proposed in amendment No 4. It is another layer of ensuring that the guidelines are clearly out in the public domain. No doubt the guidelines will be published, and it would seem unusual to force a Division on an issue of that nature. The Minister set it out clearly that he has a particular view on and concerns about amendment No 8. From the Committee's perspective, there was a clear acknowledgement that, other than the review happening "from time to time", there is no other accountability measure in the Bill. I do not want to rehearse the comments that I made earlier on that in any great detail. I am not particularly speaking for the Committee here, but, from our discussions, this point is probably broadly reflective of what other Members discussed in Committee. My concern is that, if we left it to the Department to mark its own homework on accountability, there would be a risk that the provisions would be diluted. I appreciate that the Minister highlighted his concerns on the specific wording. I trust that, if there were something that caused a serious technical problem for the Department, it would certainly be within its capabilities to address it and tidy it up at Further Consideration Stage. In the Committee's discussions, we were clear that we want that reporting mechanism to be made clear in the Bill. From my perspective, I will not change my position on that amendment. The debate on amendment Nos 9, 10, 11 and 12 has been helpful. It reflected the discussion that we had in Committee, which had a fair degree of back and forth on what an appropriate balance to strike on enforcement should be. However, nothing that I heard in the debate convinced me that what the Committee introduced is anything other than necessary and appropriate. We will come to this in the next group, but guidelines are only as good as what is in them. They are also only as good as the extent to which they can be meaningfully enforced. My sense from —.

I will indeed.

I thank the Deputy Chair for his intervention. My memory is the same as his: in the Committee, we were given very clear assurances that the guidelines would be provided in draft form to the Committee. That would have been helpful. I was open to being reassured. As I said in my opening remarks, I never approached the process with the desire of messing with the Minister's Bill. I will be really clear: the issue is too important to get into that space. I have no desire to put prescriptive measures in the Bill just to score a point or be able to say that they were something that I did or that the Committee achieved. We did not see the guidelines, so we did not get the reassurance. To a large extent, that is why we are where we are with the process. From the Department's evidence to the Committee on the enforcement of the guidelines, it seemed that officials really thought — they were at pains to emphasise this — that the guidelines would be so clear and robust that it was highly unlikely that any school would have the wriggle room to diverge from them. They did not see any scenario in which it was likely that the Department would be involved in directing a school. If that is the case, I am not sure where the concerns about the change to a "must" provision on publication come from. If the Minister is confident that the Bill will deliver a regime that will work for parents and deliver reduced costs and that schools will have to comply, the concerns that are being raised do not carry much weight.

Yes.

I thank the Member for his intervention. I re-emphasise that it was clear from the Department's evidence to the Committee that officials did not envisage any scenario in which it would get anywhere near a courtroom. I hope that that would be the case: I hope that schools would have the good sense to comply with the guidelines. Although I do not like the "name and shame" element, its benefit is the sense that the school's name will be put into the public domain. It comes down to the phrase about failure:

"in one or more material respects".

If a school is failing in one or more material — "material" meaning substantial or significant — respects to comply with the guidelines that are there to bring costs down, why is that school in that space? If it has reached a place in which it still refuses to engage with the Department when the Department has highlighted its concerns and if the school is of that mindset, there may need to be a robust mechanism so that it is assured and clear that there will be a consequence for that action. The phrase "material respects" means that we are not talking about an inconsequential matter, where a school may not have used the right form of words to reflect the guidelines accurately or may not have been clear enough in one element of its uniform policy. It is about failing in a material respect, which means a serious breach, and the enforcement regime that flows from that should reflect its seriousness. That is my view on the amendments on enforceability. I will pick up a couple of other points from the debate. The Minister particularly emphasised the Bill's status as an Executive Bill. Yes, of course it is: any Bill that comes through the Department has passed through the Executive. However, nobody here would say that that means that every member of the Executive has rubber-stamped it and said, "The Bill is the finished article, requires no attention or amendment and entirely delivers everything that we want it to". If that were the case, we would not have a Committee Stage; there would be no such thing. Committees across the Assembly are engaging in the scrutiny of Executive Bills, suggesting improvements and enhancements when the scrutiny stage kicks in. That is entirely appropriate. To suggest that we should leave the Bill alone because it is an Executive Bill does not reflect the reality of how this place operates.

Where do we go from here? I hope that Members consider carefully how they vote on these amendments so that we can be assured that the Bill that comes out the other side of this process, through the group 1 amendments, delivers on enforcement and is effective. We will come to whether or not the content of the Bill and what it is going to do is appropriate. If we are serious about tackling costs, however — everybody has said today that they are — we have to be serious about monitoring the impact of the Bill and ensuring that it is enforced. I will be clear on this for the record: the vast majority of schools are trying to do the right thing. They are there to serve their communities. However, we cannot ignore the fact that, for whatever reason to do with their history, their tradition, the perceived demographic of the students that they seek to attract or whatever else it may be, there are outliers that do not seem to have an appetite to take seriously the issue of costs and of ensuring that their school is open to absolutely everybody regardless of economic background. Knowing that to be the case, and knowing that there are schools that will maintain such a position, it is important that there is accountability. I commend the Committee's amendments to the House, because I believe that they add the appropriate level of enforcement and monitoring that is required to ensure, as far as is possible — notwithstanding the debate on which amendments were selected and which were not, and the fact that many of us would have liked to see other things on the Floor for debate — that the Bill that is effective and that it delivers. Thank you.

I promise Members that I will not rehearse all the comments about the Committee Stage. I am sure that no one wants to hear those repeated, so I will move straight to speaking directly to the group 2 amendments. With this group of amendments, we are really looking at the content of the guidelines — what they contain — and at whether we are satisfied that they will deliver on the Bill's intentions. Throughout the Committee Stage, there was much discussion on how many provisions of the Bill were framed in terms of what "may" be included in the guidelines rather than what "must" be included. That was a recurring theme in probably every Committee meeting on the issue. Although not all parties agreed on all aspects of the discussions on that point — I am sure that Members will address that in their remarks — there was a feeling that, as the guidelines will actively dictate what schools actually have to do to reduce costs and what schools would find to be a new requirement, it would be appropriate for the Bill to prescribe the content of some of the key aspects of those guidelines. Amendment Nos 2 and 3 sit together. If they are passed, they will stipulate that the guidelines "must" inform schools who is to be consulted on their uniform policy, although doing so would not limit who can be consulted, should schools choose to consult more widely. Following on from that, they will stipulate that the consultees "must" include parents and guardians and the pupils of the school. The fact that that was not mandated in the Bill as drafted seems like a significant oversight. Members from the DUP did not take this position, and I am sure that they will address that, but there was a strong feeling among the Committee members from other parties that that needs to be corrected. It seemed clear that parents and pupils who are associated with the school should have to be consulted if the level of engagement with the school community on a school uniform policy is going to be meaningful and to ensure that a policy is fit for purpose for the school. It may well be the case — I suspect that it is — that, if draft guidelines were before us now, those requirements might be provided, but we could not get those assurances from the Department. It may be that the amendment was not necessary, but, in the absence of that clarity, the Committee felt this to be an important aspect for inclusion in the Bill. It was very clear from the evidence that we heard, particularly from young people, that they felt, in some contexts, completely ignored in relation to school uniform policy in their school. They felt that it was just something that was imposed upon them and that their views were not relevant. Also, parents felt that they might sign their child up for a school at a given point in the year only to find that the uniform policy hid a whole range of costs that they had not been aware of or understood. It seems critical that both of those groups are required to be consulted by a school when it is drafting its policy. I turn to amendment No 5. The Committee proposed a number of amendments relating to clause 2(2)(a) on a whole range of areas. Those were around issues of comfort and practicality of school uniforms and issues relating to gender, menstruation, special educational needs and religious observance. However, based on the amendments selected, we are debating only a single proposed change to clause 2(2)(a), and that is around requiring schools to consider the practicality of uniforms in facilitating access to play-based curricula and outdoor learning. Particular care was taken when considering that amendment to ensure that there was a specific reference to the Foundation Stage, although the amendment is not limited to that cohort of children. I was pleased to propose that amendment to the Committee, and I am glad that it received support because my experience is that children moving from preschool into their primary education often experience a very sudden and marked change in their uniform, finding that it becomes more formal, more restrictive and less practical. It is not uncommon for schools to adopt uniform policies for their P1 children that mandate buttoned shirts, dresses, tights and ties. If we are serious about a play-based curriculum being important in the Foundation Stage, we must consider that those things inevitably restrict children's ability to access that curriculum. It sometimes raises questions about whether we really do deliver a play-based curriculum or whether we are moving children to sit at a desk and to learn in a different way. I think that amendment No 5 would send a very clear message that uniform policies should reflect the value that is placed on the Foundation Stage play-based curriculum and ensure its accessibility for all children. The Committee, with the exception of members from the DUP, supported that change, and I hope that it is given support today when we come to voting after the Consideration Stage debate. I move to amendment Nos 6 and 7. The Committee heard from parents and children that the cost of uniforms differed widely depending on the arrangements and contracts that schools had with suppliers and on the insistence on certain expensive, branded uniform items as part of those arrangements. Particular attention was given to the issue of branded PE kit. These amendments, together, seek to bring a degree of accountability around supplier contracts for school uniforms. We heard very helpful evidence from school uniform suppliers that supply arrangements can have a role in delivering good value and that, if schools have a positive relationship and engage with local suppliers, they can be part of the solution to delivering value. However, the Committee was keen to balance that relationship with transparency so that arrangements around supplier deals were clear to parents when purchasing uniforms. There was a very strong appetite among members to ensure that practices such as sportswear manufacturers exclusively supplying expensive PE kits to schools, with perks then being offered around the provision of equipment or kits for staff, for example, as part of those deals, should be brought into the open. Amendment Nos 6 and 7, in my view, still permit single-supplier deals to be retained but only when a very clearly articulated cost rationale is supplied to support their continuation. The Committee felt that that was an appropriate balance to strike in that space. We did not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and the Committee was of the view that, if a sensible arrangement with a supplier delivers good value for money, the amendments will allow that to continue. Amendment No 13 generated substantial discussion at the Committee because it concerns the commencement of one of the enabling powers in the Bill. Members will be aware that the Bill as drafted gives the Minister some enabling powers to limit or restrict items of uniform and introduce a cap on uniform costs at some point in the future. This particular amendment relates to section 3 of the Bill, which gives the Minister the enabling power to restrict specific items of uniform. In common parlance around the debate, they are often referred to as "branded items", but, from my perspective, I urge caution on the use of that phrase because the Committee quickly found out that "branded" meant different things to different people in almost every context. The Committee submitted an amendment that would have made the restriction on these uniform items a "must" provision. It would have created a duty on the Minister to bring in restrictions on uniform items with a view to bringing down the costs, and it would have kicked in immediately after Royal Assent if the amendment had passed. However, as that amendment was not selected — again, I note that it is a matter for the judgment of the Speaker — amendment No 13 is rendered largely inconsequential, because giving immediate effect to a power that the Department "may" utilise rather than "must" does not change anything. As it remains a "may" power, its commencement is of no great consequence. I see no issue with amendment No 13 going forward either way, as it would be good to see at least some impetus behind this in the Bill so that, if it is given effect immediately after Royal Assent, at least those powers become available to the Minister straight away.

3,111 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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